Most scrutinized passport control experience
 

I've heard that foreign passport holders can get scrutinized when visiting countries like the US, but it's rare for a US passport holder to get scrutinized but it does happen from time to time. When I fly to the EU or any well developed country like Japan, the passport control officer usually takes a look at me, my passport, scans the passport, and stamps it. But in some places I've had someone stare at my US passport for what felt like 10mins and ask a lot of questions. I was recently in Georgia and the passport control officer at TBS kept looking at my passport photo and back at me probably a dozen times. She then handed my passport to the officer beside her and started saying some things in Georgian. She looked through every single page with a light and checked the hologram. Then I got questions about why I was there, how long I was staying, where I was staying, if I knew anyone there, and what method I was using to leave the country. I've also had this happen in Ukraine (before the war). My only guess is they aren't used to seeing US passport holders in those parts.

What's your craziest passport control experience?

Guyana (GEO), same with the staring at me/passport/me/passport. At least she spoke English.

Also, coming off the first US plane to land at the then-new Shanghai Pudong airport (PVG). Lots of military types with whatever machine gun the PLA uses around passport control. The stare! First me, then the passport, then me, then the passport, then me... repeat 5-6 times for at least five minutes, then a lot of yelling in Mandarin at the others while I have had no sleep for 24+ and have no idea what's going on. They did eventually let me in.

I fly with a US passport.

Worst controls: US operated security (with SSSS tag), or pre-immigrations kiosk X’ng me out

Second worst: new zealand

Sofia - they couldn't understand why my passport picture looked nothing like me. I tried to explain that it was a tradition/custom/good luck thing for me to not shave the week before a flight and they still insisted my picture looked nothing like myself. This was the same occasion I have mentioned elsewhere that they could not understand why I wanted to turn right around and board the same aircraft and couldn't sort out the boarding pass issue.

Amusingly, my best passport experience was in North Korea where they thought I was American on a British passport. My accent returned to my native one in bewilderment at which point the DPRK passport officer then said "Oh, Yorkshire?" to which I replied that I was - turns out he'd been to the same collage as me and at the same time too... What a strange world

Beirut, early 2000s. At the time I was traveling internationally to at least 20 countries a year, so my passport had already had a couple of packs of extra pages sewn in and was pretty voluminous. In those days I possessed a second passport specifically for travel to Israel, which I obviously wasn't carrying for this trip. Both on my way into Lebanon and on my way out, three separate people (most toting large firearms) scrutinized my passport page by page, one after another, presumably looking for the Israeli stamp. I wasn't scared by this, just amused.

Yangon back in 2012; Myanmar had only "reopened" for tourism a couple of years before and I read about people having issues at the airport. FWIW I was traveling solo as a 22 year old backpacker, and I had an issue both on entry and departure. Entry - I approached immigration and they almost immediately pulled me into a back room that looked and felt like airport jail. I had no idea why or what they were asking me about but after about 30 minutes I was stamped in and released. It was unsettling but nothing too bad, and a few people at my hostel said the same thing had happened to them.
Departure on the other hand... The entry stamp was very faint and they had put it practically right on top of another stamp. Even I could barely find it in my own passport, and low and behold when I got to immigration, the office cannot find it. It became a giant "how did you get into the country" thing, and I was taken to the same creepy back room for questioning. A US State Dep. agent came into the room after a little while and assisted and was able to get me out, through immigration and security and on my way. I always double check my entry stamps now.
The most thorough passport check I've had was at SVO. We left after they invaded Ukraine and ended up being on the last flight to the States. We had to transit at SVO and the immigration officer saw our Ukraine stamps from just a few months prior and proceeded to ask us all about that trip, why we would have gone to Ukraine, etc, as well as every other Baltic and eastern european stamp. It took forever and we were sweating, but it all worked out.

DH and I passed in and out of LED (St. Petersburg) in 2003 with zero problems with US passports and visas that I'd gotten independently.

Mine was Delhi and it wasn't even a Passport Control official. I was waiting to check in and there was an employee interrogating people waiting in line. He was really pelting the old lady ahead of me with questions in Hindi- the nice young guy in line behind me said she was a just going to visit her sister elsewhere in the country.

When he got to me he suspiciously fondled my extra-bulky passport and said, "What happened to your passport?" I pointed out the page where it said right there that extra pages had been inserted by the US Passport Office. He then checked my ticket and said, "I see your destination is Switzerland. Do you have a visa to enter Switzerland?" Trick question, Dude. US citizens don't need a visa to enter Switzerland. If DH and I hadn't spent a couple of lovely nights in Lugano on a side trip from Milan a few years before might actually have been worried. He went on to his next victim after that.

I used to get extra scrutiny every time I came back from Mexico ( usually into Houston) on my US passport. My husband breezes through, as does the other travel companions. I once asked the immigration officer how come.... his reply " There are a lot on bad ( insert my name) out there". :rolleyes: But a few years later our travel companion started flying private everywhere.....now we land and a immigration officer comes on board the plane and we are processed in minutes.:)

Curious if you expected another language since Guyana is a Commonewealth country and English is the official language.

Delhi airport, India :

I am born & bred British but my parents are from Pakistan. Guy at checkpost way before boarding gate asks me how I got my passport, where my parents are from, what do I do in the UK and then he WROTE THE FLIGHT DEPARTURE TIME ON THE BACK OF MY PASSPORT WITH A PEN! BSTRD!

Cairo, Egypt :

On entry and exit, they asked me where am I from. I tell them I am British. Then, they ask me where are your parents from? And, then they tell me to stand to a side and set aside my passport but keep it with them. They see five other people while I stand there like a felon and then eventually they give my passport back to me. It's not as if they were doing any background checks with people elsewhere in that time. RACIST BSTRDS!

Saudi Arabia. Took 30 minutes and I still don’t know why.

USA. Spent three hours cooling my heals while the CBP searched my car. Lots of warnings in advance whether there was something I should tell them before the search. I knew they wouldn't find anything untoward and they didn't. Never happened before or since. No idea why.

My friend was moving to Alaska and had something similar happen on the Canada side. Made him unload his entire moving trailer on the side of the road. I guess they were looking for guns or ammo.

Spent about 4 hrs in airport jail in PVG due to the wrong kind of visa. Ended up having to go to HKG for the night before returning to to PVG "in transit." The only place I routinely get grief from immigration officers is when returning home to the US and showing them my valid US passport.. I despise them and they can tell. I've ended up in secondary repeatedly. I had a quick work overnight DEN-BOG with the return being BOG-MIA-DEN. Apparently it's unusual to only be in Colombia for 12 hours.....

In Baku, on my way to Tashkent after having traveled around the Caucasus by train (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan), at the departure gate the passport controller was put out by the Armenian visa in my (US) passport. The two countries have been at war periodically, and after a lot of harrumphing and disgusted looks at me for having even been to Armenia and questions of why I would do such a thing I was allowed to get on the plane.
And once in Istanbul at check-in for the MEA flight to Beirut there was a long interrogation of whether I had ever been to Israel. Of course Israel doesn't note trips to the country in foreigners' passports, so the MEA clerks were on the lookout for sneaky, odious tourists who might have at any time traveled there. My denials worked.