BrianGrant

Yes. He was a border patrol person at the Seattle airport. I made a special trip in just to be interviewed. Was not going anywhere, or crossing a border. The agent just wanted to make some sort of political point, apparently since the locals in WA have no interest in the Fed's view of evil weed.

On a side note, Seattle beat Denver in the Super Bowl. Both are states where recreational marijuana are legal. Coincidence?

dajur

Here's my experience, which may give some hope to people without a pristine history with the law.

18 years ago, as a juvenile, 15 at the time, I was convicted of possession of stolen property, felony level due to the value of the item.

I was hesitant to apply based on that and considered just going with precheck, but decided to try it. I applied Saturday 9-13, got the conditional approval the following Monday at 8am. Got lucky and got an interview spot Tuesday morning and was approved without incident.

I was honest on the application. In the free form text of the "convicted of a crime" section I stated the charge, and described the sentence (probation) and noted it was completed without incident. I didn't mention misdemeanor or felony though. Based on the speed of conditional approval I'm confident no human read that part prior to conditional approval.

At the interview was asked if convicted of a crime, said yes and restated the charge, place and approximate date, and explained the general details of what I had done. She asked if it had been expunged, I explained it was sealed, but that the state it occurred in had no option for expungement for juveniles.

After that she took my finger prints and photo and told me I was approved.

Stgermainparis

I'm happy to hear this b/c so many of us have silly juvenile stuff in our histories. After hemming and hawing I decided to stick with precheck b/c I travel internationally so rarely (tops 1x averaging per year). I was approved in 3 days. Answered NO to conviction questions (my juvenile record does not have a "conviction") and that was that. I didn't want the hassle of GE overall, esp given the stories I've heard and the fact that no GE interviews in my city (but we do have pre check). But I'm glad to read about an instance where such a record was not an impediment to GE.

astroflyer

My friend was recently denied for Nexus because of a customs violation at age 18 (he is now 32). He brought back a bottle of Absinthe from Europe to the US when the import of absinthe was still not allowed. It's especially annoying because absinthe is again legal in the US.

Is it really valid to hold something rather minor that happened 14 years ago as an 18 year old against him now? I wonder if this is worth appealing?

14940674

It is a matter of trust. This is how CBP sees it: he could not be trusted to follow the rules fourteen years ago, so why should we trust him to follow the current rules now? I highly doubt the appeal would be successful with a customs infraction on the books.

747FC

Sympathy for your friend, but 18 is hardly a minor. Voting and military service are allowed because it is assumed you can be trusted with making intelligent decisions.

CKDGM

It's a "minor" customs violation.

The trusted traveler programs are trusting you not to violate the customs laws. Can you see why they might consider violations of those to be more of an issue than a similarly petty theft when deciding whether or not to approve an application?

(Also, if he was 18 in 2000 he was importing alcohol while being below the legal drinking age in every state, which doesn't exactly help his case.)

astroflyer

Right, but surely there's some version of a statute of limitations for minor violations. 14 years is a long time for a bottle of absinthe or a kinder egg that was just quickly confiscated. It wasn't exactly a pound of coke stuffed up his bum.

I'd argue it's all about estimating risk, and risk is best estimated by recent history....let me give 3 examples:
1) Think about speeding tickets or moving violations and your car insurance. Speeding tickets more than 3-10 years old (depending on the state) don't cause your insurance rates to rise.
2) Or you can think about your credit report. How long does a bankruptcy stay on your report? In Canada, 6 years. In the US, up to 10 years. You can screw your creditors our of hundreds of thousands of dollars and no one will know 10 years later.
3) US Federal security clearances. SF-86 only asks about misdemeanors and arrests up to 7 years. Only felonies or prison sentences extending beyond a year count beyond that. Ditto to the question on drug use, it only asks about 7 years. This is what is considered before granting access to top secret national security information.

Clearly both the public and private interests here seem to have established a pretty reasonable concept of a statute of limitations. In all cases a very minor infraction from 14 years ago would definitely not count.

747FC

Based upon what you cite, I would argue that the Federal government, outside CPB, is going light on people. They should adopt CPB standards.

flyerCO

In this case:
1)It's a customs violation - He has already shown a disregard for not just any, but the very rules you're being asked to be trusted to follow.
2)18 is still an adult - Adult rules apply and thus adult responsibilities and penalties. Also as someone posted in addition to a customs violation he violated min. age laws for alcohol.

If you take the example above of a security clearance - if you've previously violated a security clearance by sharing information, should you then be able to get one just because time has past? No, you shouldn't you've shown yourself to be unworthy of trust with the very thing you're about to be trusted to do.

CBP has a very high threshold for getting in. Which considering what you're getting in return is justified IMO. The risks of someone bringing something in illegally are there. It should only be given thus to those that have shown to have no issues following the rules.

An appeal will be pointless. CBP rules are clear - violations of customs rules/regulations in the US or any other country make you ineligible for GE. I wouldn't expect to get a job as a bank teller after a theft conviction. Likewise someone breaking customs rule/regulations shouldn't expect to get GE.

travellight

As a result, I declare all items, even if one candy bar received on the plane.

astroflyer

Wow, this is definitely a tough bunch in this thread. Please let me know if you've had a speeding ticket in the last 14 years, I'll be sure to confiscate your license as you can clearly never atone for that mistake.

CKDGM

Bad analogy.

driving : driver's license :: crossing borders : passport
not
driving : driver's license :: crossing borders : trusted traveler card

If there were some kind of "Trusted Driver's License" that let you proceed through a red light after stopping, then I would expect getting a ticket for running a red light (without stopping) would make you ineligible for it. That wouldn't mean your license would be revoked for running a red light, just that you weren't trusted to properly judge when it would be safe to cross an intersection against the signal.

Conversely, having violated customs regulations doesn't mean you lose your passport and can never enter the US again; it just means they won't trust you to do it without the regular amount of oversight. (I suspect that your friend is not being sent to secondary every single time he enters the US now, despite said violation.)

squeakr

this is for facts, questions etc. not for value/moral judgements.

thanks

squeakr
co Mod TS/S

BigFlyer

I am an EU citizen, and without any prior application or approval I have used the automatic biometric border gates in the UK, Netherlands, and at least one other country.

That serves as passport control, then you have the normal green channel/red channel customs. I have probably entered the EU well over 50 times at airports, and never had my luggage searched. I think once a customs official asked me where I was coming from while going through the Green channel, and that was it.

So basically, Americans are made to go through an application process, jump through hoops, and have a pristine record to get the same treatment coming home Europeans enjoy automatically.

So, for those posters who have the "what do you expect, you brought ____ (fill in minor transgression here) through customs years ago: attitude, I suppose the answer might be "I expect to be treated the same way the citizens of European democracies are treated by their countries."