How to end a conversation with USCIS
 

This is a recount of my conversation with the customs inspector in EWR, returning from SJO.

Them: What food did you bring back?

Me: Chocolate covered coffee beans.

Them: Visit any other countries?

Me: No.

Them: How long were gone for?

Me: Less than a week.

Them: Purpose of visit?

Me: Vacation.

Them: Why a vacation?

Me: Just graduated.

Them: Graduated from?

Me: Emory University Law School.

Them: Thank you, good day.

I always knew my JD would payoff.^^^^

They asked you a lot more questions than I got on my arrival in SFO last week. Usually all you get is how long, where, and the food thing. Maybe what do you do for a living. My guess is the agent was afraid you were going to tell him about all the great job offers you were getting and wanted to get rid of you. :)

I have great job offers? This is news to me.

Congradulations man.

Some advice from a 10-year lawyer:

The culture of law enforcement despises attorneys. To them, lawyers are the people who publicize their screwups and their violations of law.

Generally speaking, LEOs come down harder on attorneys. I never re-enter the U.S. with business cards and don't have anthing in my wallet which IDs my profession.

Congratulations on the J.D.

Congratulations and best of luck on the July Bar.

Some rebuttal from a 28 year lawyer. I have never encountered this sentiment at JFK.

I think the point is that throwing around the "I'm a lawyer" thing is as likely (if not more so) to bring on additional hostility as just remaining silent, given the overall "popularity" of lawyers. It certainly isn't likely to intimidate anyone. :)

Now, if you were to say you were an IRS agent... :p

Once upon a time the Mrs. worked in a facility at which a laptop had gone missing. A detective interviewed all the employees at great length. Then it was Wifey's turn:

Q: I'm here to investigate the missing laptop.
A: Should I call my husband? He's a lawyer.

(Detective closes notebook and leaves without another word)

She came home and wanted to know why the detective had left while all the other employees were questioned at length. I explained to her that by saying the word "lawyer" she had, quite inadvertently, invoked her 6th Amendment right to counsel and the detective was at that point required to stop questioning her.

I wonder whether the OP's mention of "law school" triggered the same response from the LEO, and for the same reasons.

That's not much different than the conversation I had with the Customs agent in Miami when I was coming back from a cruise in the Caribbean. In this case, the item in question was Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee. If he keyed on me being an ex-cop (and they frequently do - we can pick one another out of a crowd), he didn't mention it, and neither did I. But he didn't ask me why I took a vacation (same reason anyone else does, I suppose). He just stamped my customs form and welcomed me home.

I think a lot of you folks go looking for trouble.

Tell me how her question triggered the requirement that the detective not question her further.

1. She wasn't in custody, and presumably free to leave. Had this not been the case, I doubt if the detective would have just walked away.
2. There is no indication that she was the focus of the investigation or suspected of any crime. The detective was only gathering information. Miranda only attaches when the person being questioned is (a) not free to leave and (b) asked potentially incriminating questions. Even then, there are many exceptions to the Miranda rule.
3. There was no demand to speak with an attorney or to have one present during questioning. There was only a question as to whether she should call one. The appropriate response would be, "Whether you want to call an attorney or not is up to you. You certainly have the right to do so." But she was not compelled or coerced to answer any of the detective's questions, and the detective apparently thought she was more trouble than any information she might have furnished was worth. I have made the same decision many times.

Cops who know what they're doing are not intimidated by attorneys, or the mention of them. Attorneys seem to like to believe the mention of their status causes stalwart lawmen to quake and wet their pants, but I have never witnessed this to happen. And I have arrested several attorneys.

Are you sure you're a lawyer? This is pretty basic stuff.

Doubtful. In your case the officer was conducting a criminal investigation and questioning specific people, whereas the Immigration officer was asking standard questions asked of all persons entering the country. As I pointed out, the OP actually got more questions than I usually get.

I had a new experience with USCIS the other day: no questions at all.

First one in line after an early morning arrival from NRT. Say "Good Morning," hand over my passport, get it back, and waved through without the immigration inspector saying a word.

Not that I'm complaining. :D

Very similar subject came up when coworkers and I were asked if we ever dropped our company's name or partner's name. Most of us have. Our company's partner is one of the most well-known lawyers in the US.

An coworker (from a Muslim country (still a citizen of said country, still uses said passport) that gets a lot of suspicion right now, warranted or not) relayed a story of coming back from a vacation outside of the US. She was detained in some back room. Then they started in with the questions. As soon as she answered the "who do you work for?" question, she was immediately let go.

You work for Denny Crane? ;)

Thanks for the support on the Bar.

I did not state in any way that I am a lawyer, it would be unprofessional for me to do so. :p

P.S. if any of the attorneys on here would like to hire a young hard working litigation associate, please feel free to PM me.

Funny. Perhaps they had her confused with someone else whose employment was known? Or perhaps they just assumed that someone working for a reputable law firm couldn't be a criminal/terrorist/immigration violator/whatever? Rather silly assumption if that's the case.

BTW, you all should probably know that nothing in this thread actually concerned a conversation with USCIS. They were all with CBP.

I was thinking Roni Deutch... :D

Coming home, AMS-BDL, about 10 days ago

Q) What countries did you visit?
A) France and The Netherlands

Q) Bring home any dope from Amsterdam?)
A) No

......Welcome Home



seriously, that was my conversation. My seat in 1A, through Immigrations & Customs to the curb waiting for my wife.....total time was under 3 minutes! Why can't all airports be this easy?

Portions of the post that previously appeared in this space have been deleted. I would provide you with a reason why, but doing so would likely be against the TOS.

Copwriter, I think your last statement is a gross generalisation. I can understand your skepticism but please do keep in mind that just because it hasn't happened to you on a regular basis, doesn't negate the fact that some customs agents do give individuals a hard time upon re-entering the country. I'm not implying anything about the integrity of the agency or about all customs and immigration agents, but some agents do unnecessarily hassle incoming travellers. I doubt very many of us who get hassled purposely look for trouble after sitting on a cramped plane for 12 hours. The last thing we want is to be interrogated upon entering the country. But it does happen.

I'm a university student. There is very little reason that a customs and immigration agent has to ask what I study and ask me to explain my research in 20 words or less. There is little reason for an agent to ask the name of my friend that I visited, how long we've been dating, where we met, what he does, what we did during the visit, that I look young for my age or any of the inane questions that are completely irrelevant to assessing whether or not I should be allowed back into my country. Maybe it's my height, maybe I look young, maybe I'm getting racially profiled. But please trust me when I say this, I don't ask to be interrogated and I am not looking for trouble. I just want to get my passport scanned and pick up my luggage and go home to a hot bath. But the hassles do happen, to some more than others. I count myself among the lucky ones as I only get hassled about 25% of the time.

Much ado about the thought that CBP might care that you're a lawyer.

Actually, there are a lot of reasons for those questions. They are looking for behavioral cues which can manifest through "inane questions". They are trying to determine whether to release you from there or target you for additional inspection. It's a system that's been shown to work quite well over many, many years.

No questions at all is the kind of usual experience I get when arriving back in the US after saying "Hello" or "Hi there".

ewwwwwwwwww. i'm sorry. hopefully you got hazard pay

A 50+% chance that the person selected for additional questioning or screening is found to be without contraband, without dutiable articles, and being just who they say they are is "a system that's been shown to work quite well over many, many years"?

Deeg, I would agree with you if and only if those types of inane questions were uniformly applied to all students. I'll provide an example. I was sitting beside a fellow university student on a plane. We chatted during the flight. Very nice fellow. We both went into the same line, he cleared before I did. The agent neither asked him a long series of questions but simply allowed him through in less than 30 seconds. This was his 3rd or 4th time travelling I believe. I approach the window and I'm given the third degree. I am presentable, well dressed, always polite. I've travelled extensively for someone my age. The student before me was raggedy looking and in my opinion should have triggered more questions than I received (as nice a person as he was). I declared the exact amount I spent. He did not (I know he told me) but he got the wave through. So perhaps Deeg, you could speculate as to what triggered the wave of questions, because I am baffled. I am baffled why some agents feel it is appropriate to say that I am young looking for my age. What does that have to do with entering a country? I am baffled as to why some agents feel it is appropriate to insult the type of research I do (it has unfortunately happened). What does that have to do with entering a country? I am baffled as to why some agents feel it necessary to insult my hobbies that I do. What does that have to do with entering a country? I am baffled as to why some agents feel it necessary to insult me by saying, "oh you look old today". What does that have to do with entering a country? How do those questions play into a "system that's been shown to work quite well over many, many years." Granted, the "oh you look old today" only happened at Canadian Customs not UCIS, but still, the rest of those comments were asked by UCIS and Canadian Customs.

Unless those questions are uniformly applied to all, then I can't help but think that some agents deliberately choose to give certain people a hard time. And to be quite frank, I think some of their inane comments are completely inappropriate and insulting.

Yup, sure is. That's the main reason that CBP has a random selection program as well as targeted selection. The statistics show that the travelers targeted as suspicious by an officer are many times more likely to have contraband than a randomly selected traveler. Last I heard (several years ago), it was by a factor of 30-odd times more likely. I call that a successful system.

Fair enough. Sounds like you've had some negative experiences. I've had my share as well. I was only trying to make the point that some weird questions may have a reasonable basis for them. But there's no reason for the questioning to be insulting.

(Although, to be fair, some of the comments such as looking young for your age, could simply be conversational. It's hard to sit in that booth for eight hours and not pass the time by talking to people.)

Deeg, absolutely some questions may have a reasonable basis, ie "where did you come from, how much did you purchase, anything to declare etc". As I said, I consider myself lucky that I don't always get hassled. It's only about 25% of the time. It's those inappropriate questions that are insulting that are completely unnecessary. I can absolutely understand the need for human contact beyond the perfunctory questions when the agent is sitting there for 8 hours a day. But, I gotta say, if they were simply conversational comments, some of those agents really need to learn the art of conversation

Seriously, I can't believe that the PP basically said "CBP 'R People Too".

If they want to have a friendly chat, I'm all for it. Take off the badge and gun, tell me I'm free to enter the country. Then we can have a nice chat, if I have time.

Notwithstanding all that, it's a coercive fishing expedition. I like the Einstein who checked us back in at STT a few weeks ago, who literally could not believe that we didn't buy a single item to bring back into the country. "No, nothing. That's why I wrote zero on there." And then wouldn't believe we hadn't visited the BVI's. Again...if we had, I would have written it on the form. Unless I was trying to hide something in which case I certainly wouldn't admit it upon being asked, so, really, why the exercise? It boggles the mind why they would even waste the breath. Maybe they just have to ask a certain number of questions per hour and process a maximum number of people or else they're marked down on their performance review for not fishing enough.

Well, it's not Johnny Cochran, since he's toast. :)

I've gotten secondary a few times in the last year at LAX (and only LAX), and needless to say, they've never found anything. I've learned to not get upset about it, although it has made me miss a connecting flight before.

I'll be entering next in HNL, which I've never had as an intl entry before, so hopefully they're better! I used to actually like flying through LAX, but not with some of their monster security lines, and other BS.

Whoa. TSOs aren't bound to keep passengers' personal property confidential when they inspect it? Sometimes I fly with confidential engineering prototypes which I'm bound not to make public. Do I need to stop doing this? It seems so, since there are many Internet rumor forums relating to my industry, and nothing is to stop the TSO from posting there as SMF TSO just did here.

And if someone made public that I regularly traveled with tens of thousands of dollars in cash in my bags, that could create a serious threat to my own personal safety. Remember, robbers kill far more people than terrorists do, and the TSA's job is to keep passengers safe.

I would think that even public figures should still be able to expect the contents of their bags to be private at the checkpoint - and that reasonable people wouldn't disclose information that threatens someone's personal safety.

Saying "Yup, sure is" to indicate that a 50+% false alarm is "a system that's been shown to work quite well over many, many years" seems to be one of those "Good job, Brownie" moments during Hurrican Katrina -- another roaring success for DHS. Since the creation of DHS/DHS-CBP, the government has been doing a worse job in this regard than before the creation of DHS.

If a judge kept granting warrants to local police that resulted in finding nothing as often as is the case with DHS-CBP, what do you think would happen?

If you go back a hundred-odd years or more, Customs used to search every person, vehicle, and thing that came into the country. As traffic increased, they had to stop doing that. It's the same way with cargo shipments. A small percentage are examined based on targeting criteria and gut feelings. No one expects to find contraband with every single secondary inspection. That's not the purpose of the program. It's probably something like a 10% success rate in commercial air passengers (if you include minor undeclared items for which the officer allows the person to make an amended declaration).

Instead of thinking of those sent for secondary inspection as suspects, think of them instead as people who couldn't be cleared on primary inspection. That's more how the officers think of them (or should be...the newer guys don't seem to get this). If the primary officer isn't convinced of their lawful immigration status, they get sent in to immigration. If the primary officer isn't convinced that they don't have contraband, they get sent in to baggage.

Most likely nothing. Judges shouldn't care about the outcome. They should be concerned only with the question of whether probable cause has been shown.

Why don't I believe that? Perhaps because it's historically anything but true. The US government had far more limited resources to control borders a hundred or hundred fifty years ago than it does today.

Unless the judges want to be a lap dog for law enforcement, they sure should care about the outcome otherwise they are authorizing a fishing expedition, something that the Founding Fathers of the United States were very much opposed to allowing.

Yeah, but if the cops have sufficient evidence to arrest someone they wouldn't waste their time interviewing "suspects" to begin with. If you don't believe it, just tell a detective you have retained professional counsel, they will back off as fast as they put on their cheap JC Penny Coat. Atleast, if they are smart.

If you tell me "cops" and agents aren't intimidated by good attorneys I'll openly laugh in your face. The vast majority of cops who make it to the level of detectives are career seekers who will do what is best for their own good. It isn't uncommon for detectives to build cases against suspects who are innocent, in order to further their own careers. That's why it is wise to never talk to investigators, regardless of innocence or guilt.

If cops aren't "intimidated" by attorneys there is something seriously wrong with the system. Cops can't make you "talk" regardless of what they *think* you've done. I find it offensive to hear a member of law enforcement saying "triggered the requirement that the detective not question her further. " I find it sickening that cops, such as yourself, are trained in each and every way to bypass the rights of individuals. Call it what you want, you are still a puppet and cannon fodder for a system designed to screw the common folk. You can't make anyone talk. If you ever approached me with that attitude I'd quickly tell you to go eat a doughnut.

I've been through both ORD, LAX and HNL, each once. ORD and LAX were the usual.. a few questions based on what I had checked off, then waved me through. HNL I declared a whole bunch of stuff and checked off the box for food and for soil since I was bringing sand back from Sydney. The 2nd guy I passed by said sand didn't qualify for soil and waved me through. Meanwhile a friend with me on that trip who declared and brought back nothing got the secondary.

HNL was annoying because as soon as we got off the plane we were escorted through the arrival terminal, onto a wiki wiki and transported to another terminal for customs.

Seriously, it's a good thing we have those upstanding moral crusaders known as lawyers to protect the common folk from the evil cops in cheap JC Penny suits... And they somehow manage to do it while running the very system designed to screw the common folk!.. I guess being a moral crusader is a demaning job, so no cheap JC Penny suits for them, eh? ;)

Interesting, and somewhat contradictory tones in that post...

I think the judges should care about the merit of the warrant request, and I believe that's what Deeg was referring to. Caring about the outcome would suggest their interest in approving or disaproving the warrant request was based on something other than the warrant's merit -- and that would be unfortunate.

Peter Francis Geraci? :D

No, I smoked it all there. :D

Do you honestly believe most TSOs are intelligent/educated enough to recognize what you're carrying? :D They are more likely to consider it a bomb and dump the terminal.