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As a US citizen, what questions is Customs permitted to ask you on arrival in the US?

As a US citizen, what questions is Customs permitted to ask you on arrival in the US?

Old Dec 29, 2007, 8:45 am
  #91  
 
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What is it with these racists? When I was coming through with a newly adopted baby from China, I walked up, the passport guy pointed his chin at her and his first words were a disdainful "How much you pay for that?" Still makes my blood boil. Does that fit into the category of questions they get to ask to see how I would react?
No, that's disgusting.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 8:54 am
  #92  
 
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Originally Posted by polonius
Mostly a good summary, but:

1) you cannot be forced to answer questions, and most certainly the 5th amendment doesn't get suspended just because you are at a border. But again, if you do choose to answer, you can be penalised for not answering truthfully

2) although "probable cause" is not required for "inspection," it IS required for a search. What the difference is between "inspection" and a "search" has been established by a number of court rulings, including U.S. v Arnold, which clearly established that looking into a computer is a "search". That same ruling also established that finding images of nude adult females (which are of course perfectly legal) did not provide "probable cause" to believe that there may be illegal pictures of nude female children. The ruling can be found here.

The important legal principle to understand is that although there is an explicit exception to 4th amendment protections at the border, the exception was created for purposes of controlling who is admitted, for preventing the entry of contraband, and to ensure that goverment revenues due for tariffs and duties are collected. The exception was NOT created to give the government free rein to have a poke around in anything they feel like just because it's a border, even if the FBI, DEA and other agencies have been somewhat successful at exploiting this hole in 4th amendment protection for such purposes. I was once referred for secondary inspection and had an inspector start rifling through a stack of credit and membership cards that was in my briefcase -- I objected successfully to this attempt at searching through these cards because there was no possibility that any of them could have contraband or an undeclared import and therefore they had zero reason to be looking through them.
Probable Cause is NOT necessary at a border search, up to and including computers.

A CBP officer at a POE can essentially search anything or anyone he or she wants, for little to no cause.

The only search that requires some articulation is a body cavity.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 9:20 am
  #93  
 
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Originally Posted by law dawg
Probable Cause is NOT necessary at a border search, up to and including computers.

A CBP officer at a POE can essentially search anything or anyone he or she wants, for little to no cause.

The only search that requires some articulation is a body cavity.
Patdowns require at least one articulable fact. Example: Passenger had an unexplained bulge around his/her midsection.

Each level on increased search requires further evidence/suspicion and may involve Chief Counsel, the Port Director, or court order.

Levels include: partial removal of clothing, x-ray of body, cavity search and/or monitored bowel movement.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 9:35 am
  #94  
 
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Originally Posted by Taker Park
Patdowns require at least one articulable fact. Example: Passenger had an unexplained bulge around his/her midsection.

Each level on increased search requires further evidence/suspicion and may involve Chief Counsel, the Port Director, or court order.

Levels include: partial removal of clothing, x-ray of body, cavity search and/or monitored bowel movement.
Articulable fact(s) are components of PC, not PC itself. That was my point. You are, of course, correct that the more invasive searches need approval. I wasn't clear enough and didn't mention strip searches (didn't really think of them for some reason).

The point is - PC is not necessary for searches at a POE.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 10:46 am
  #95  
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Originally Posted by Steve M
This is a bit of a special situation since you were going through pre-clearance in Canada. The treaty between the US and Canada that authorizes this unusual situation (where you clear US Immigration and Customs in Canada before you board the airplane and arrive in the US as a domestic flight) provides that the US agents do not have police powers in Canada. So, unlike at the regular ports of entry, they can't arrest you. They can however call over to a Canadian police officer and have them arrest you, assuming that you're arrestable under Canadian law, and possibly have you extradited to the US.

So, this provides all sorts of unusual situations. For example, what if you're caught during Customs inspection with something that's illegal to import into the US, but legal to possess in Canada? If you were going through inspection at a US airport, they could confiscate the item or arrest you. But they can do neither in this hypothetical situation since the item is legal to possess in Canada. But what they can do is refuse to clear you past the checkpoint with the item.
First of all, this happened at the immigration inspection, not customs clearance. Second, what has the identity of my client to do with any of this? There are no clients that I may not, as a matter of law, represent, nor are there any clients that would justify my exclusion from the U.S. I could represent bin Laden himself and the government can not, Constitutionally, exclude my re-entry (or have me arrested, either by Canadian or U.S. police).

Now consider this from an immigration standpoint. PTravel was threatened to not be allowed to come home unless he coughed up the identity of his client. If both he and the Immigration agent stood their ground, he probably could have been prevented from coming back in this situation.
Not legally. As I said, the solution would have been an ex parte writ of mandamus.

Although he can't be denied entry to the US as a US citizen, in this situation he's at the Toronto airport and is not on US soil at the point the Immigration inspection is taking place. If the agent stuck to his ground and said "you're not passing my checkpoint" there's probably not much PTravel could do to force his way through (I mean in the legal sense).
A mandamus is an order from a federal court directed to a government agency or official, requiring that they do something (or refrain from doing something). "Ex parte" means that it could be obtained on very short notice and without participation of the other side, in this case DHS. Depending on the time of day, we could obtain an ex parte writ in a matter of hours, and you better believe that any federal judge is going to be hostile to a government agency that conditions re-entry into the U.S. on breach of attorney/client privilege.

I guess he could cancel his flight, proceed to a land port of entry, then stand his ground there. At that point he'd be a US citizen on US soil, and they'd have to eventually let him pass once they completed whatever Customs inspection they wanted to do.
This wasn't a Customs inspection. And, as indicated, I wouldn't have chosen to go to a land crossing. I would have first demanded to see this officer's supervisor. If that didn't work, I'd have taken the court approach, along with a phone call or two to the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor and the few other remaining reputable news reporting entities in the U.S.

But at the Toronto airport, he probably has no way under either US or Canadian law to force his way through based on citizenship. I wonder how often situations like this actually happen.
I've been traveling internationally for more than 35 years. I've never had anything like this happen, except that one time in Toronto. If your question is, "How often do individual Immigration/DHS officers act unconstitutionally?" the answer is probably, "Rarely." They do, however, do so from time to time. Do an FT search on "First Amendment" and "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" if you'd like to see another outrageous example.

Last edited by PTravel; Dec 29, 2007 at 11:26 am
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 10:51 am
  #96  
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Originally Posted by Steve M
A $0 value on a Customs declaration is always a no-no.
Nonsense. I go to Canada several times a year (I have a number of clients there). These trips are always short, frequently just overnight, and I hardly ever buy anything. Accordingly, my Customs declaration usually recites $0, and I've never, not once, had the least bit of trouble with Customs. I've never gotten a secondary. I've never been asked questions by Customs about what I did.

This is especially true if you mail something somewhere. I'm aware of several situations where someone mailed something for business to another country via FedEx or some other express service that needed to get there quickly, and where the item in question was demo software, a DVD of a presentation, or something similar, and where the physical item itself was considered to have essentially no value. If you put $0 as the value on the Customs declaration, you're begging for the item to be held up in Customs, as the officer is likely to ask "why is someone paying to overnight an item half-way around the world that has no value?"
I don't know where you are getting this, as it's simply not true. I have clients all over the world, as well as associate firms and other offices in many different countries. I routinely ship documents, data CDs and data DVDs to these locations, and receive similar items back. I use Fedex, UPS and DHL. I've never had anything held up by Customs.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 11:00 am
  #97  
 
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Originally Posted by polonius
I was once referred for secondary inspection and had an inspector start rifling through a stack of credit and membership cards that was in my briefcase -- I objected successfully to this attempt at searching through these cards because there was no possibility that any of them could have contraband or an undeclared import and therefore they had zero reason to be looking through them.
Sure the credit cards could have been contraband. They could have been either counterfeit or stolen.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 11:21 am
  #98  
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Originally Posted by Taker Park
So how did you react?
I'm not sure whether this as addressed to me or HRHMom. The last time this happened, I read the Immigration inspector the riot act. I don't recall exactly what I said, but it was along the lines of, "How dare you? Who do you think you are to talk to my wife that way? It's racist, offensive, and I'm going to talk to your supervisor." And I did speak to the supervisor who apologized and took my complaint though, as I indicated, I never heard anything further about it.

I want to be clear, as well: the number of problems I've had with Immigration officers is very, very small -- off the top of my head, I can think of only 3 or 4 incidents that would be worthy of comment (though at least one other incident, involving my wife, was truly outrageous). And I've never had any problems at all with the Customs side of things. I've even had purchases we made overseas shipped home (by air and, a couple of times, by sea) and handled the Customs clearance myself. Virtually without exception, I've found the Customs officers to be efficient and polite, and almost always friendly and helpful. I'm not looking for trouble when I travel. Quite the opposite, I am polite and cooperative (unless my Constitutional rights are violated). I have noticed, however, that many people seem to be terrified or, at least, in awe of, Immigration officers. An anecdote:

Once, I was returning from Canada through Vancouver. That particular day, there were two separate "feeder" lines that converged at a single Immigration officer's position (usually there were two positions open at this location, but today there was only one). The officer manning the position was only taking people from the second line and completely ignoring the first, which happened to be the line that I was in. There were about 10 people ahead of me in line, all Canadians, judging from their passports. After about 10 minutes, when it became clear that we were being ignored in favor of the second line, I excused myself, went to the front of the line and said to the officer, "Excuse me . . . are you going to take anyone from our line?" The officer barked at me, "I'll get to you." I don't like being barked at, so I barked back, "When?" He growled, "Don't worry about it." I replied, "I will worry about it. I have a tight connection to make -- you should be taking people from both lines." The officer mumbled something, but then called the first person from my line and alternated lines after that. During this exchange, I noticed that the Canadians in front of me literally cringed. A couple of them whispered "thank you" to me. It was as if they expected a platoon of Marines to suddenly appear and drag me off to Guantanamo and, if they acted as anything other than docile sheep, they would be dragged off with me.

This is supposed to be America, not Nazi Germany, and Immigration officers are supposed to be the visible face of the government, and therefore the people, of the United States. I'm not quite sure when they (or, at least, some) started to become indistinguishable from jack-booted thugs, but I will not stand for it.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 11:23 am
  #99  
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Originally Posted by vesicle
I will use the word 'jihad' is I like regardless if it offends yours or anyone else's sensibilities...in fact it was to that very end and worked spectacularly.

A government official saying "how much did you pay for that?" to someone with an adopted baby needs to be AND can be disciplined with the right push. The above is NOT the duty of the officer. I don't believe for a second this was some 'behavioral test' but rather it was an @sshole in a position of authority who has an attitude problem. Do you think it is ok if a US citizen who is black upon returning from an African vacation is asked "How was the family's hut spearchucker?"...no different than what the mother above experienced...blatant and very wrong racism. I would have gathered any witnesses and taken contact numbers and statements, filed a complaint before leaving the area, contacted all media outlets and legal counsel in addition to anyone else who could publicize this behavior and the officer's name. It is wrong and should not be tolerated unless you want more of the same.

If you deem this behavior acceptable and wish to gloss over it then that is your choice. You see resistance to being treated wrongly and sometimes illegally as being "belligerent and a smartass"...I see it is standing up for right and I will do so within the boundaries of the law if it is necessary. Regardless of the pigeon hole many people like to put people like me in it isn't like we look for a fight...hell many times I have zero problem..we just react when one is brought to us rather than accept the raping. All systems have some good folks in them and no reasonable person would cause trouble just for the fun of it.

I am not saying bucking the system is easy...but when you are clearly in the right all it will give them in the end is a huge mess. There is only so much that can be swept under the rug these days...contrary to the fear mongers you will not be convicted of a crime or sent off to Cuba for following the law and insisting they do the same.

People who defend the goonish behavior are as sick as they are and I hope they get stuck on the bad end of the very things they accept...poetic justice.
Bravo, Vesicle! I agree with you completely.

Originally Posted by Polonius
The important legal principle to understand is that although there is an explicit exception to 4th amendment protections at the border, the exception was created for purposes of controlling who is admitted, for preventing the entry of contraband, and to ensure that goverment revenues due for tariffs and duties are collected. The exception was NOT created to give the government free rein to have a poke around in anything they feel like just because it's a border, even if the FBI, DEA and other agencies have been somewhat successful at exploiting this hole in 4th amendment protection for such purposes. I was once referred for secondary inspection and had an inspector start rifling through a stack of credit and membership cards that was in my briefcase -- I objected successfully to this attempt at searching through these cards because there was no possibility that any of them could have contraband or an undeclared import and therefore they had zero reason to be looking through them.
And Bravo, Polonius! A very good explanation of the constitutional limits of border entry search and detainment. And I applaud you for standing up for your rights.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 11:46 am
  #100  
 
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"That searches made at the border, pursuant to the longstanding right of the sovereign to protect itself by stopping and examining persons and property crossing into this country, are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border, should, by now, require no extended demonstration."
United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 616 (1977)

The customs search in border or POE circumstances requires no warrant, no probable cause, not even the showing of some degree of suspicion that accompanies even investigatory stops.
Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 154 (1925); United States v. Thirty-Seven Photographs, 402 U.S. 363, 376 (1971); Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 272 (1973).

And in United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531 (1985) an approved warrantless detention incommunicado for more than 24 hours of traveler suspected of alimentary canal drug smuggling was held firm.

These pretty much speak for themselves. While there are rights to some degree at the border they are not what people think they are entitled to, for the most part.

Last edited by law dawg; Dec 30, 2007 at 8:14 pm Reason: can't fricking spell
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 1:17 pm
  #101  
 
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[QUOTE=Taker Park;8969519]
Originally Posted by HRHMom

So how did you react?

Well, I am rather embarrassed to admit I stood there with my mouth hanging open, stunned into silence. This was somewhat effective in that after a few moments he moved onto business, looking kind of embarrassed himself.

I have replayed the scene in my mind millions of times, wishing I had had my wits about me more, formulating brilliant retorts and fantasizing suitable punishments, all of which involve some variation of him living out his miserable existence homeless and destitute under a crumbling bridge somewhere in remote China with only the kindness of strangers to keep him fed. I wonder sometimes if he could still be identified and something done. It's not like I hold a grudge, it was only 12 years ago.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 1:45 pm
  #102  
 
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[QUOTE=HRHMom;8971068]
Originally Posted by Taker Park


Well, I am rather embarrassed to admit I stood there with my mouth hanging open, stunned into silence. This was somewhat effective in that after a few moments he moved onto business, looking kind of embarrassed himself.

I have replayed the scene in my mind millions of times, wishing I had had my wits about me more, formulating brilliant retorts and fantasizing suitable punishments, all of which involve some variation of him living out his miserable existence homeless and destitute under a crumbling bridge somewhere in remote China with only the kindness of strangers to keep him fed. I wonder sometimes if he could still be identified and something done. It's not like I hold a grudge, it was only 12 years ago.
Why wouldn't you hold a grudge, it was your child he was talking about. If he was serious in his remark then he should've gotten a kick in the pants. A good reply would have been, "Excuse me?", but that was pretty shocking.

I'd bet that if he was saying that as a joke, that he must have gotten a laugh previous to that or he wouldn't have said it. I've pretty much given up on telling jokes to passengers.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 2:10 pm
  #103  
 
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Originally Posted by PTravel
Nonsense. I go to Canada several times a year (I have a number of clients there). These trips are always short, frequently just overnight, and I hardly ever buy anything. Accordingly, my Customs declaration usually recites $0, and I've never, not once, had the least bit of trouble with Customs. I've never gotten a secondary. I've never been asked questions by Customs about what I did.
I was inferring from the post I responded to that the person listed several items on the written Customs declaration, and put $0 as the value next to each one of them. This is very different from the situation where you have nothing to declare.

I don't know where you are getting this, as it's simply not true. I have clients all over the world, as well as associate firms and other offices in many different countries. I routinely ship documents, data CDs and data DVDs to these locations, and receive similar items back. I use Fedex, UPS and DHL. I've never had anything held up by Customs.
What is written on the Customs declaration? When asked to declare the value (for items that are other than "documents"), what do you put? Obviously, "documents" don't really have a value in the normal sense. I was thinking more in terms of sample goods.
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 2:50 pm
  #104  
 
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Originally Posted by law dawg
While their are rights to some degree at the border they are not what people think they are entitled to, for the most part.
That's why you always encrypt your stuff. They can search your laptop but a recent court decision indicates that things are moving to where they can't compel you to produce a password.

I wish MacOS had TrueCrypt - that is even more awesome. You can create encrypted filesystems that have a duress password. You give someone the password and they find a filesystem with a few harmless pictures or mp3s or something. But it has a false bottom - you need the real password to access the files. Oh, and there is no way to prove that you gave them the duress password vs the real password. I recommend it to anyone who is crossing our nazi-like border crossings now.

Oh, here's an update: TrueCrypt 5.0 will supposedly work on MacOS! And it's scheduled to be released in January! W00t!

Last edited by JakiChan; Dec 29, 2007 at 2:54 pm Reason: more truecrypt info
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Old Dec 29, 2007, 3:24 pm
  #105  
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Originally Posted by Steve M
What is written on the Customs declaration? When asked to declare the value (for items that are other than "documents"), what do you put? Obviously, "documents" don't really have a value in the normal sense. I was thinking more in terms of sample goods.
Generally, "documents," or, if there are CDs and DVDs, "Data CDs and DVDs." When they are non-documentary, "commercial samples."
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