joshwex90

I always have interesting experiences at the US/Canada border. One way is always pleasant and the other is always a hassle/nightmare, though sometimes the US side is the problem and sometimes it's the Canada side!

Generally have crossed by the Rainbow and Peace bridges

Loren Pechtel

I have noticed that when we get probing questions from the customs official we are much more likely to get an agricultural inspection than when we don't.

Frog Escalator

It's not exactly routine, but I've had questions entering the UK on a UK passport at London Gatwick often enough. One example:
I didn't want to be any more argumentative or arsey with her, so I ended up telling her where I'd flown from. I was probably grumpy after having waited 50 minutes in the bloody passport queue. Her asking where I had travelled from just got my back up.


Another occasion was at London City, this time with customs, not immigration. I was travelling from Chicago-Zurich-London City and was carrying a backpack. Customs officer pulled me aside asking where I'd been.
(I answered the customs officer's question about origin airports as customs' role is different, and besides, she could have "punished" me with a tedious time-consuming bag search).

surreycrv

Probably from all the peeps ahead of you that refused to answer the rather simple question asked.

Sure, YOU know you haven't done anything wrong with your traveling. But THEY don't, and those simple questions are meant to determine if the traveler might be a problem.

BigFlyer

What do you mean "traveler might be a problem?" We are talking about returning citizens, who have a right to enter whether not they are a "problem."

And, why you might think it is a good idea, as apparently does DHS, most countries do not share that point of view.

:D!

See this thread: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/u-k-i...ty-card-4.html

I don't see what relevance this has to the point you were trying to make. For immigration purposes, intra-Schengen flights are more or less treated as domestic. You won't get asked any questions or have to show documents to the government when flying within the UK, or from Ireland to the UK. When you enter and exit Schengen, you may also be asked this question. So why is it different when you enter the UK?

Furthermore, if you filled in API accurately, then someone in the government already knows where you came from. I am not sure whether UK immigration officers can see that on their screens, though.



I don't see what you are trying to prove with this example.

Firstly, even if you walk through the blue EU customs channel in a UK airport, customs officers are entitled to check that you are not making a false declaration about your customs origin.

Secondly, neither Chicago nor Zürich are in the EU, therefore full customs checks apply.

Finally, with only a backpack, if you did not pass through customs in Zürich, then you should have said Chicago; if you passed through customs in Zürich, you should have said Zürich.

jphripjah

If every returning US citizen simply refused to be interrogated about whether they are a criminal or a "problem" then CBP would stop asking these questions pretty quickly. They can't send everyone to secondary inspection for refusal to answer.

They continue to interrogate returning citizens about whether they are criminals because people just go along with it.

timster83

I do believe that they can. Returning from Amsterdam on my old passport where the photo didn't really look like me anymore, I was asked by the border official about my last trip abroad: where I had been and when.

yandosan

"They continue to interrogate returning citizens about whether they are criminals because people just go along with it."

Good point. I had an incident in Miami where a CBP brute named Valladares
was asking everyone "Have you ever been arrested?"
So even if you just have a connecting flight you were waiting 3 hours
in the hellish customs line and getting the treatment.
Who cares if you've ever been arrested? MLK was arrested over 30 times.
Jesus Christ was arrested an executed.
So yeah, I agree with you, it's just the bloodsport of making people
uncomfortable; if people started asserting their rights
or demanding some respect this would not continue.

chollie

I think you are wrong.

If every returning US citizen refused to answer questions, CBP certainly could (and would) send them to secondary - and they'd likely set records prolonging secondary. It wouldn't matter if people were delayed hours or days. They would make one public example of zero tolerance, at least one pax would get tased/arrested, and everyone would get the message: re-entering your country is a privilege, not a right.

jphripjah

Well, right now, only about 3% of travelers are sent to secondary inspection. If everyone refused to answer questions and everyone were sent to secondary, they would need at least 30X the manpower that they currently devote to these inspections. They don't have the manpower or resources to put everyone through secondary inspection, that;'s why 97% of the passengers sail right through.

Also, if everyone refused to answer out of principle, CBP officers would stop viewing the refusal to answer as suspicious and warranting further inspection.

Anyway, as I may have mentioned elsewhere, I just visited Afghanistan (tourist) and will return through O'Hare in about two weeks. Should be interesting, I'm already flagged as a refuser with previous recent visits to Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan.

chollie

I wasn't clear.

CBP probably would be a mess if 20% of pax refused to answer questions and were sent to secondary. My point is, it would likely only happen one time. Pax would be backed up for hours, flights would be missed, and ultimately pax would back down, not CBP.

A couple times, I have behaved in a way that is very untypical of me. I have chided a CBP agent for not finishing our encounter with 'welcome home'. It seems hard to believe now, but there was a time when that was common. The pastor at church actually based a sermon on those words after he and his wife took their first trip abroad.

It's a small thing, but to me it is indicative of how adversarial the relationship between CBP and pax/citizens has become. Welcoming someone home seems to be the last thing on a CBP agent's mind these days: it's more like "you're lucky I'm letting you back in to your own country, now get out of my sight before I change my mind".

sethb

For a citizen of the US, re-entering the US is a right, and the Supreme Court (and International Courts) will agree.

Dovster

Who is being asked if they are criminals? Out of all the trips I have made to the States, I have only been asked "What is the purpose of your trip, business or pleasure" and "Do you have anything to declare"?

The first question was asked on several different trips, the latter only once.

(Oh, I forgot -- back in the 60s, when passports were not required to travel between Canada and the US, I was asked on each crossing where I was born.)

GUWonder

Lots of returning Americans are interrogated to try to find out if such returning Americans have committed a violation of US law or are committing a violation of US law.

While most times, CBP verbally asks me only one or more of the following:

the purpose of my trip;
how long I've been out of the country;
where I came from/visited;
anything to declare

sometimes they ask more questions of the sort that seem inclined to be hunting for criminal violations of US laws.