azureskies22

I’m a 19yr old black male living in Ireland who travels alone quite a few times to London, Paris, Nice and sometimes to back to Kenya every year and although I haven’t been stopped by customs officers, I have gotten a few odd looks from them, mainly due to my quietness and emotion lacking face. My mother and a number of people say I can have an unusual demeanor so I’m surprised that they haven’t taken me for secondary screening.


But this got me thinking, aside from racial profiling, do customs officers do a general profile of individuals? Watching the border security show ‘Nothing To Declare/Australia’s Front Line’ it seems that drug mules are caught not initially through inconsistent travel details or drug detector dogs but by their demeanor and appearance. I remember on the first few episodes , A South African middle aged man was flagged for his unusual contrasting look. He had a shabby appearance but he had an expensive business bag and suit. It turned out he was carrying statues filled with cocaine.


So when airport officers do ‘random’ drug swabs or send some people to secondary, how much of this is in relation to the profile of an individual? Does anyone here get subjected to intensive questioning or extra searches?

txflyer77

I get sent to secondary inspection more than you might expect for an average looking white American guy. I attribute this to my passport photo being taken back during the days when my hair was down to my shoulders (a style I no longer rock).

I've definitely gotten my share of double-takes from immigration officers. I sent it off for renewal last week—with my new photo and short-cropped hair—so maybe that'll change.

Duke787

No but one time I routed to Chicago from DC via Lima (last minute care was shockingly about the same and I had AA SWUs to burn).

Spent one night in Lima and came back via Miami. Officer thought my trip was somewhat sketchy and sent me to secondary screening (probably thought I was bringing back drugs because of quick turnaround)

sbm12

I've been sent to secondary in Bermuda (didn't have full details of where I was sleeping that night) and almost sent to secondary in Brussels (guy didn't believe I was there for a day trip from NYC to earn points and drink good beer).

I've also been sent to secondary a few times on returning home to the USA, often when I'm coming in from overseas with minimal bags (i.e. just a backpack/messenger bag) and they don't like the way that looks or they're bored.

(Link to my blog; you've been warned)

tartempion

In the 80ties I worked for an ATL based company and flew 2x/year to HQ.
Landing ATL from BRU, each and every time I would be extracted from the immigration queue by officers for extra scrutiny.

I don't know why, I looked somewhat Mediterranean? Edit: Mexican?
Is that a race????

Loren Pechtel

Customs, no. Immigration, yes.

We arrived in England from Africa after numerous things had gone wrong:

1) A few months earlier thieves got into our stored luggage. We still had our tropical attire (somewhat worn from our travels--we had been on the road for a year at this point) but our temperate-environment clothing was gone. Thus we arrive looking rather shabby.

2) We had considerable trouble with the financial systems, they weren't nearly as good then as now. We had not been able to access our money--we had a total of $5 with us. Since our credit cards would work in England this wasn't an issue to us.

3) We had run out of time. My father had an earlier deadline than my mother and I so he had flown out earlier, at that time we were expecting to continue on for another few weeks. After he flew out we found out that our plans weren't going to work, we probably would have no further chance to fly out and would have to continue on overland to London (~5 weeks if nothing more went wrong--we only had 3.) Thus we ended up flying out a few days after he did.

Thus, while my father was actually in London at the time we had made no contact plans as we did not expect to be in the city at the same time he was. (Note: This was before cell phones were even a rich man's toy.)

Finally, my mother was blind. Somehow the immigration guy got it in his mind that we were trying to get into England to get medical care for her blindness. Never mind that there's nothing a doc can do for someone with no eyeballs at all.

We were trying to convince him for a couple of hours before we finally got him to go over to British Airways and see if they would accept the credit card. They had no problem with it, with a very changed attitude he let us in. Their loss--tickets were available (this was back when you could fly a lot cheaper on a standby ticket than a normal one), we decided to fly on home rather than even go into London so they didn't get any tourist dollars from us.

belfordrocks

Twice now I rented a car from California one way and drove it to YVR... ended up in secondary both times.

eigenvector

Peace Arch border crossing into Canada is one of the worst on the entire US/Canada border. Everyone gets hassled here.

belfordrocks

Did the Pacific Highway crossing the second time, and got the same. Maybe I need to try Lynden-Aldergrove next time?

eigenvector

Aldergrove and Sumas are both substantially friendlier in my experience.

Amelorn

Oddest encounter was coming home from Canada this past summer.

I was crossing the Canada/US border where Quebec 55 meets I-91 in Vermont. I offered my passport to the US agent. I was 40-50 pounds heavier and had some stubble in that photo (June 2014 ish), versus being clean shaven and lighter. The agent asked for a "more recent photo ID with less facial hair" which was bizarre, as A) It's a freakin' US passport and B) These CBP agents, I thought, were trained to notice facial structures that don't change (eg bone structure, eye distance).

jrl767

my 25-year-old son (with long hair and scruffy beard) and my wife and I drove from Seattle to Vancouver thru Aldergrove this past summer ... we were sent to secondary, waited for about 45 min, answered a few routine questions, and had our car thoroughly searched; however, all the other people who were also pulled aside during that time were of different demographics than us, and got far more rigorously questioned than we did, so we chalked it up to tokenism

full disclosure: at the drive-up booth the agent (who had our passports) asked about the last time we had been to Canada; my wife and I said probably 1996 ... I totally spaced on the fact that I had transited YYZ for an hour and a half on a MR a couple months earlier, so that might have flagged me in the system

Annalisa12

Happens to my brother. A job he once had was determining what hotels would go in a travel brochure. His area of expertise? South America. So when he shows up at immigration and then customs with his passport saying 2 days Guatemala, 2 days Columbia, 1 day Brazil, 1 day Peru etc it is "let's go to this other room to have a little chat!"

teddybear99

I don't think this qualifies as his "appearance," but it is upon examination of his passport.

When it comes to appearance, when my wife and I travel back to the US from the Philippines, we always get secondary inspection. However, when I flew back early on my own, I go straight through. After the last time, I asked why it always seemed to happen. The Customs' officer said half-jokingly that many older Filipinas like to bring back plants, vegetables or seeds to plant and seeing that my wife is a Filipina, they are always suspect. I pointed out if they track it, we never have anything because we know the regulations. (We always declare the food we bring back even mentioning the stuff we are bringing back what was purchased in the US, but not consumed on the trip.)

The only time it hasn't happened when we were together coming back was when we transited ATL. I guess it's not well known there.

Annalisa12

I know that. I was commenting to someone else who had their actions queried.