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Funniest thing you have heard from customs upon reentering your home country?

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Funniest thing you have heard from customs upon reentering your home country?

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Old Jul 30, 2012, 3:07 am
  #1  
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Funniest thing you have heard from customs upon reentering your home country?

I think my favorite was after a lengthy trip through Australia, India, Asia and Europe the field for "countries visited since you were last in the U.S." was pretty well filled in. When I handed it to the customs guy he was like

"Sir, you don't need to fill out every country you've ever been to, just the ones from your most recent trip"

My #2 would be returning to JFK after roughly 30 hours in Reykjavik to cover a music festival, the customs officer looked at my stamps for Iceland then asked "You went to Iceland for a day?" I explained I had been there working on a story and he nodded his head and replied "Awesome" then let me go on my way.
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 3:13 am
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"You've been out of the country for four months and all you have is THAT?!"

Said by agent checking customs forms in YYZ as I passed through with a small backpack. It was a weekend trip to see my brother so all my stuff was still at home, out of the country.
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 6:57 am
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A few years ago, I had done PVD-IAD-LAX-SYD-MEL (stayed for two hours) SYD-LAX-IAD-PVD. When returning to LAX, the agent looked at my passport and said "Did you get enough miles?" I just smiled and said "I will when I do this again next weekend!" He just laughed and waved me on.
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 7:29 am
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Not while entering, but while leaving Venezuela...

The border agent spent five minutes flipping through my 9-year-old, twice-expanded passport looking for my entry visa. After flipping through it front-to-back and then back-to-front and unable to find the entry visa, he then tosses my passport back to me and says in perfect english "Just freakin' leave."
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 7:34 am
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I was asked "when are you leaving" by a US customs agent.

Granted I live overseas but still not the warm welcome I was expecting.
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 9:13 am
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I was once told that the customs agent wouldn't touch my passport because I had AIDS and would give it to her. I had already cleared immigration and was picking up my bags, she told me to go back to the plane. I hadn't even gotten in line yet. This was back in 1993 and I was returning from my junior year in Geneva. I admit that I was terribly hungover and really skinny. I had some bruises from a car accident the day before (I got drunk AFTER the car accident). The agent was yelling at me to go back to the plane. I was telling her that she was an idiot and that I didn't have AIDS and you couldn't get it from a passport anyways. People were backing away from me. I told her that I paid her salary with my taxes so she worked for me (my god, in a post 9/11 world I'd so be in jail). I finally told her to F Off and stomped to the front of another line. I cut in front of about 150 people and they all let me (I think at least 50% were afraid of me) . The guy working at the front looked at my passport and waived me through saying "Welcome home, I'm sorry my colleague is a b!tch"
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 9:43 am
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Originally Posted by wharvey
A few years ago, I had done PVD-IAD-LAX-SYD-MEL (stayed for two hours) SYD-LAX-IAD-PVD. When returning to LAX, the agent looked at my passport and said "Did you get enough miles?"
I love it!
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 9:47 am
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Not entering the country, but at one of those immigration checkpoints in Arizona an officer stopped me and started asking rapid-fire questions: "What's your name? Where do you live? Where were you born? Where did you grow up? What was your high school name? ... Can you sing your high school fight song for me?"

I answered all of these honestly, including "No!" to the last one. The officer smirked and waved me on.
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 1:20 pm
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Nothing said, but the actions of this border agent are what I found funny.

Some friends of mine from the UK came across for a road trip. For financial reasons, they flew into Thunder Bay, ON. I picked them up, and we started off for DLH - MSP - YVR roadtrip. We hit the Grand Portage, MN border station and my 3 friends with UK passports were waived through, while I, with a US passport, was questioned for 15 minutes about my travel and why I have a Russian visa, why I had so many stamps, etc, etc.

It left a funny impression them, as they thought I wasn't going to be allowed back in my own country. I was surprised, as well, that I was the one being questioned. The logic behind the US CBP is questionable sometimes.

(As a side note, I lived in ANC at the time, so it was a massive road trip for me, but I spent time with family in MN before picking up the Brits. My arrival into Canada 3 times (Beaver Creek, YT; Pigeon River, ON and Coutts, AB) had no problems, as well as my two other entries into the US (Alcan/Northway, AK and Pembina, ND)
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 2:58 pm
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Mrs. Milepig and I flew an outbound together, she came back a day before me.

The question asked was "What did you do with your husband?"

Last edited by milepig; Jul 31, 2012 at 9:32 am
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 3:19 pm
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A few times when I've been selected for a thorough screening CBP Officers have tried to catch me in a lie. They ask question 1 "Where do you work?" and then a few minutes later say "hey, I forgot, where do you work again?" to make sure I say the same thing. Last year when I arrived back from Europe the agent forgot to ask part 1 and said to me "hey I forgot, where do you work again?". he got VERY annoyed when I said "well, you haven't asked me yet but I work at...".
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 4:21 pm
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Originally Posted by Redhead
I was once told that the customs agent wouldn't touch my passport because I had AIDS and would give it to her. I had already cleared immigration and was picking up my bags, she told me to go back to the plane. I hadn't even gotten in line yet. This was back in 1993 and I was returning from my junior year in Geneva. I admit that I was terribly hungover and really skinny. I had some bruises from a car accident the day before (I got drunk AFTER the car accident). The agent was yelling at me to go back to the plane. I was telling her that she was an idiot and that I didn't have AIDS and you couldn't get it from a passport anyways. People were backing away from me. I told her that I paid her salary with my taxes so she worked for me (my god, in a post 9/11 world I'd so be in jail). I finally told her to F Off and stomped to the front of another line. I cut in front of about 150 people and they all let me (I think at least 50% were afraid of me) . The guy working at the front looked at my passport and waived me through saying "Welcome home, I'm sorry my colleague is a b!tch"
I would say something but I am afraid of you.
You are absolutely rigght you would be in jail if it happened after 9/11.
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 4:37 pm
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Returning home to NYC via JFK, an immigration agent recently asked my wife and I, "Who married who?" After 3 seconds of confused hesitation, we responded almost simultaneously, "We married each other." The agent didn't seem too happy about the answer, but let us proceed. We are a mixed-race couple and share the same last name. Not sure exactly what he was expecting to hear...

Last edited by marata28; Jul 30, 2012 at 4:38 pm Reason: grammar
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 4:59 pm
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Everything, except used personal items, you bring in is subject to customs duty, after you have exhausted your dutyfree exemption.
Our bags did not arrive with us. So we had to exit the customs without our luggage, after we reported the lost bags.
Once you exit the customs area, you are presumed to have exhausted your duty free exemption, but we hadn't exhausted ours as we had not yet imported our luggage, as proven by the copy of our lost luggage report.
When our luggage arrived, we had to go to the airport to take it through customs inspection. There is usually a green line for those arrving passengers who have nothing to declare. You simply hand your customs form and walk out, unless a customs officer sends you for inspection.
The customs officer, unaware that we had not exhausted our duty free allowance, trested us as we had been caught walking through the green channel, and made a long list of dutiable itmes, which included things such as a toy cell phone, and diapers. I protested that diapers were personal items of clothing.
The officer reponded, "But they are new, not used!"
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Old Jul 30, 2012, 5:47 pm
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"How far away is your home from work?"
"About 20 miles, Sir"
"Where do you live?"
"About 20 miles from where I work, Sir"
- "welcome home"
- "thank you, bye-bye"
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