So here's the story :

On a sunday night a few months ago, me and a few friends decide to embark on a road trip, from montreal, going to plattsburgh to begin with.

So we drive down until we hit the border patrol, and get asked for documents, where they pull us over for secondary. They inspect and search the car, and of course find nothing. So they come inside and ask us a bunch of question : Where you going, What are you doing, Who are you meeting in platsburgh etc etc. They as well asked us to empty our pockets and declare how much money we have carrying with us. Most of my friends had relatively low amounts, but I was carriying around 1000$ in hundred dollar bills.

They then proceeded to ask me more questions, how come you have this money, why do you have this much money and not the other people with you etc etc.

So eventually after they spoke to everybody, they decided that they cannot grant us access in USA, because one of the guys travelling with us didn't have his citizenship card (fair enough) (we all had it plus our drivers license). As it was a spur of the moment thing, never took the time to pick up our passports from home.

The next part is the one that worries me, and aggravates me to say the least.

They then proceeded to take our pictures, full digital fingerprints of both hands, palm prints and general physical descriptions. It was frankly long, and made us feel like convicts. And then they gave us a sheet saying that we ALL had been denied access to the USA and that we needed to show this paper at canadian customs when going back up.

Is this standard procedure? Make everyone take prints and picture, because one of us didn't have the citizenship card with him? I mean we wouldn't of left him there , we would all of went back to Canada, but was it really necessary for us to go through that process?

And what happens with my information, the pictures, and prints???

They keep that on record? For how long? Under what grounds? Do they share it with any other agencies?

I've been to the states a few times after that, and didn't hit any snags, im just looking for your opinion on this guys.

Thanks

Bestof2k9