We breezed through Immigration at EWR with a young granddaughter the other day as we returned from Europe. As we got into the rather large lineup to go through the Customs checkpoint an unpleasant scene was already unfolding.

A young woman with a baby in a stroller was arguing with a Customs officer at the front. We gathered the gist of it was that she hadn't declared the milk in her infant's bottle. She said something along the lines of its being obvious she would have milk for her child in the bottle.

The exchange was heated and he finally yelled, "Congratulations! You've lost your Global Entry," as a queue of 30 or more incoming passengers looked on as an involuntary audience ("Welcome to the United States of America. We pledge to treat you courteously and professionally"). Whether she lost it because she had not declared the milk properly or simply because she was arguing with him we couldn't say.

Our granddaughter, who is quite short and couldn't see all the action, asked us with some concern "What's going on?" in the midst of it.

The Customs inspector snarled (I don't think that's too strong a term) "Have a nice day" at her two or more times. He then got somebody to relieve him at the counter and escorted her and the baby, still in the stroller, elsewhere.

We had declared some minor and innocuous food items (e.g. cookies, chocolate), writing them on the front of the form. I've never seen so many people (including us) being required to put our bags through the X-Ray machine but we eventually emerged unscathed.

The level of escalation on the part of the employee seemed unnecessary but in fairness we arrived partway through the encounter. At that point, he was louder than she was. We certainly knew "loud and clear" we had arrived back on U.S. soil.