AsiaTravel2019

When you get randomed, they are going to work you over. It is what it is and is not personal.

GUWonder

“Random” in these situations may be less typically random than personal.

Perhaps you mean “secondaried”? Same goes for that.

FliesWay2Much

e can't get too many of them fired because they will be reassigned to the TSA. But, at least they won't have guns.

Ari

He forgot to ask about all that 'Jew Cash' you were surely bringing back from Switzerland-- they need to up their training game. All about those Benjamins, ya know!

Boggie Dog

Get names, file complaints.

Section 107

Officers are allowed to be as "nosy," and ask as many questions, as each individual officer deems necessary in enforcing the nation's laws. Demeanor is expected to be courteous, professional and not exhibit any overt bias or discrimination. Definitely file a complaint if you feel the officer exhibited bias or was not courteous or professional.

Be aware that the process is supposed to be challenging (or "adversarial") by nature and supervisors are aware that pax coming through the line generally have an entirely different viewpoint of what is acceptable officer behavior versus what is not acceptable. At the same time, maybe this officer has a track record of bad behavior and yes, your complaint will make a difference.

This interaction should have no impact on future immigration/customs transactions. Because the officer let her go on her way with no further ado it probably means it simply wasn't worth the effort to make an entry in the record that the pax was unruly, uncooperative or should be subjected to additional screening.

But, then again, YMMV. Stop fooling around - apply for GE and know for sure.

seawolf

+1

Now if OP didn't use GE and accompany spouse in regular inspection, I think the interaction would have been a bit different.

GUWonder

Then that would just demonstrate that US CBP’s training and lack of accountability for acting in such prejudicial and clownish ways is a big part of this problem.

An intelligent passport control operator would know that it’s very much typical and well within the range of normal for a well-traveled person with travel across a wide variety of countries — well-traveled as indicated in/by the passport — to be able to have no current employer and even perhaps no currently taxable income of their own. “Money mule” would be the very rare exception among such well-traveled persons at airports of entry. What would be more common for such well-traveled types is to be part of a legally, well-earning household where the family finances are more directly the product of one proverbial bread-winner or a bread manufacturer background.

“When comparing US CBP at airports of entry to their equivalent at airports in other OECD countries, US CBP seems to be worse with making what I consider to be unprofessional questioning/comments -- including commentary/questions exhibiting racist and sexist biases of the passport checker -- being directed at US passport users than I've observed with their foreign equivalents at OECD country airports interacting with US passport users. Most of my travel parties’ “unemployed” members who travel extensively have never been subject to this kind of nonsense when crossing borders where they are either not required to have a visa or already have a visa. The occasional exception is primarily that when dealing with the CBP which usually can’t even legally deny most of them entry since they are mostly US citizens.

While the CBP working at airports probably are less likely to be part of single-income, multi-adult households than well-traveled spouses/partners clearing US passport control alone, CBP should be not be clueless about how normal this still is for US persons.

Of those CBP employees inclined to behave poorly with some travelers, even they may at times be a bit more hesitant to do so if they think there are additional witnesses to catch them acting in questionable ways. But there are also CBP employees who just don’t care because they’ve got away with it before and/or have internalized that accountability means little with US DHS. So even going through the FIS together is no guarantee to avoid the questionable CBP behavior.

seawolf

Seems ironic to be accusing that CBP officer of being excessively racist and nosy for not good reason based on a single interaction.

What is also ironic is the title of this thread asking if CBP agents (plural) are racist based on a single interaction with a single officer at one PoE.

It is possible other indicators such as body language you wife exhibited triggered additional questioning.

Who is to say the same officer didn�t waive thru several passengers coming off a middle eastern flight?

This CBP interaction compliant thread reminds me of the car rental damage threads in the aspect there is an inherent data bias. People will make more of an effort to report a negative experience than a positive experience. When is the last time a non-TTP praised their immigration/customs examination because they just got waived thru?

If you think about it, this is a thankless job when the best customer experience outcome is getting waived thru with no wait as general public don�t see the benefits of CBP.

GUWonder

When LEO racist profiling was coming under scrutiny and targeted for potential additional restrictions by the White House and US DOJ, CBP and its employee representatives lobbied hard to make sure CBP would be allowed to continue to racist profile. Speaks volumes about the nature of the CBP as an organization and too many within its rank and file.

seawolf

You are free to drawn any conclusion you like. I don't see how it speaks volume to anything as there's still nothing to say indicate this officer is racist based on one interaction in which OP wasn't even there as an witness.

GUWonder

Excuse-making for and disbelief about communicated LEO misbehavior is par for the course on FT too.

I�ve been around the block enough with CBP to find the OP�s relayed incident to fit within the range of things that CBP does and for which it deserves more criticism than it gets.

seawolf

Same can be said the other way around that some FT narrative of CBP have been ingrained to a point that any line of questioning contrary to that narrative is met with responses of "excuse making" in lieu of actual discourse.

To avoid the appearance of racial profiling, we can just secondary everyone. Detractors will then move to complaint about:

• economic impact due to hinderance to travel/import
• invasion of privacy
• CBP is an poorly managed organization and those resources should be more effectively deployed and to focus on criminals/high risk individuals. Surprise surprise, that is what CBP is doing.

Last I checked, criminals aren't stamped with "I'm breaking the law" on their foreheads and we don't have mind-reading capabilities (wow wouldn't that be an invasion of privacy....). I take it secondary-ing everyone is not a realistic option either. What options do you have left given limited budget/resources?

Every time you're in a scenario given limited resources, you need to prioritize which goal/mission is more important. Let's say CBP can secondary 40 travelers per hour and 20 flights coming in. 3 flights are from high-risk narco countries. Do you secondary 2 passengers from each flight just to avoid the appearance of racial profiling knowing that sure you may get some passengers exceeding duty-free exemptions from the 17 low-risk flights but at the expense of narcotics being successfully smuggled into the US from those 3 high risk flights? Over time, drugs are on the street lead to higher crime and now detractors will complain CBP is not doing enough to stem the drug trade.

If CBP is required by policy/regulation to secondary evenly across every flight without regard to actual risk, then smugglers now have an incentive to strategically pick certain flights.

I emphasis appearance of racial profiling because if CBP is targeting flights due to historical data related to interception of controlled substances from certain countries (eg "drug-sourced countries") and it just so happens the majority population living in those countries are of a different skin tone may give the appearance CBP is racial profilingwhen in reality CBP's "drug smuggler profile" is entirely based on hard data indicating travel from drug-sourced countries equates to higher risk of smuggling (race is not a factor at all).

Same thing applies to high risk "currency/meat" countries where travelers from certain countries historically often have undeclared currency/meat. You can call that racial profiling but in reality the "currency/meat smuggler profile" is based on hard data from historical interception at secondary based on country.

Summarizing my response to OP position:

• This is but a single encounter with this officer
• Wasn't initially apparent what was racist about the encounter. Subsequent OP post suggest asking about Middle Eastern country was considered racist. Asking about countries is not racist as detailed above especially if the profile is based on prior inspection experiences involving travel from those countries.
• Not sure what race OP wife is but I can see the encounter going down the same way regardless of her race.
• OP wasn't even there to witness wife's body language.

Ironic to conclude single CBP officer is racist and systemic racism based on this single interaction when wife could have fit a "profile" entirely based on extensive travel history and no job/no income.

GUWonder

Nothing in the OP suggests the CBP concern was about currency smuggling or meat smuggling.

The CBP employee mentioned by the OP may have been on some weird lookout for “radicalized”, “economically desperate” women traveling back and forth between Muslim-majority countries. This is the kind of worse than useless racist profiling that hits because of CBP employees being fed by the Islamophobic fear-mongering DHS machinery and media machinery.

Par for the course in trying to defend racist profiling is to try to categorize racist profiling as not LEO misbehavior but as an efficient convenience for the majority and thus not LEO misbehavior.

seawolf

The keyword here is may have been. You are going on a narrative entirely based on OP�s uncanny ability to remotely mind read the CBP officer�s reason for that line of questioning like Professor X in X-Men while some of us here are pointing out there are other plausible explanations for the encounter.

I�ll stress again OP wasn�t even there to witness this to begin with. I�m not saying there are zero racists in CBP. Just saying one data point is not an indication that officer is racist or CBP as a whole is racist organization.