Originally Posted by
Often1
Good example: you are an EVP Sales returning from an overseas marketing trip. Presumably you've got business cards because that's what people hand out when they are senior and traveling for sales purposes. So, when asked for one, you've got one to hand out. Absent an explanation, it's suspicious that you don't have one.
I am a lawyer and, when I travel overseas for business, I hand out my business cards to my client, to opposing counsel, etc. And then, when I am done, I pack them away in my checked bag and don't expect to have to deal with a request for one.
I tend to discount much of the snark which some on FT say they said or chalk it up to some of the rants from people who say they were denied for GE or "always" get pulled to secondary, but can't figure out why.
I have, on very rare occasions, encountered extremely rude immigration people on return to the US (always immigration, never customs who, on the whole, I've found friendly and helpful). On one occasion, an immigration officer at SFO decided that my wife, who is an American citizen, was actually a sex slave I was importing from China (I assume) and was not only rude to me, but to her. I read him the riot act in response, lecturing him about the legal presumption resulting from presentation of a valid US passport (and, yes, I did play the lawyer card, though with my California State Bar card, not my business card) and demanded to see his superior, who was called and apologized to both of us profusely. On the whole, I find the immigration folks to be vastly superior to their non-LEO counterparts at TSA, but there are definitely a couple of bad apples in that barrel.