Originally Posted by
zeppelin
Hi,
My wife left the country today to visit family, and when she called to let me know she arrived safely, she mentioned that everyone leaving was interrogated before being allowed in the boarding area by some U.S. customs or immigration officials. She was asked how much money she had. Where she was going/why/how long. How long had she been here. When did they start this? Next they are going to want DNA samples and 10 years of tax returns. Every country I have been to basically says "Welcome to <insert country here>, enjoy your stay". It has always been a pain to return to the US and go through customs, but now you can't even leave the U.S. without being harassed?
-z
Hmm... I don't have any direct experience with the interrogation, but I've only seen it happen to specific people leaving ORD. My experience runs as far as being asked by a CBP officer "Do you speak Chinese? English?" and then being asked to translate as he questioned someone on the jetway on the way to a United flight ORD-PVG. I remember it was a similar set of questions- how much money, how long they stayed in the US, what they did, why they're leaving. I thought at the time they did it when they were searching for something in particular; to do the same to everyone seems nuts, especially if they always have to do what they did when I was leaving and grab random pax to translate.