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SillyButtons
Naughty Santa



Registered: 03/04/07
Posts: 299
Loc: North Pole
Last seen: 7 years, 8 months
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US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me?
#7959705 - 01/31/08 10:36 AM (16 years, 1 day ago) |
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A bit of background: I have crossed plenty of international borders in my life time, and I have never been looked at twice. The INS/Customs pigs ask me the usual questions, I answer truthfully (usually), and they wave me through. I have no criminal record, except for a case of simple possession in Massacusetts, but I copped suspended adjudication for a first offense and the record's supposedly sealed. I also have a couple entry/exit stamps from Schiphol Airport in my passport.
Yesterday I returned to the US from Canada after seeing a show in Montreal. I had a female friend in the car with me; in fact I was driving her car when we crossed. We weren't carrying anything illegal except some non-USDA inspected veggies and unpasteurized triple cream cheese (Yummy. Like brie but soooo much better). We rolled up, the pig asked us the usual questions and I gave the standard, mostly truthful, answers. At the end of the encounter she kept our passports and said, "Do you want to do me a favor? Pull over to the left and come inside, please." Of course, we complied. We stood in the cop shop for a couple minutes before being asked to sit down and wait. About 10-15 minutes later another pig appeared behind the desk, produced our passports, and said the blessed words, "You are free to go." I was keeping an eye on the car the whole time. It was never so much as approached by a Customs pig, let alone one with a dog. So like I said earlier, what the fuck happened to us?
SB
-------------------- Travel on the cheap. Be a cultural ambassador. Spend the night on a stranger's couch! www.couchsurfing.com
Edited by SillyButtons (01/31/08 12:10 PM)
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 2 months, 20 days
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: SillyButtons]
#7959853 - 01/31/08 11:18 AM (16 years, 1 day ago) |
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> So like I said earlier, what the fuck happened to us?
Who knows... I would chalk it up to some kind of random passport verification check... or a cop getting off on a power trip... or they wanted to see if you started to freak (indication that you are smuggling something)... or they felt like being assholes (oh wait, I already mentioned power trip)... or they were going to do something, but got busy... etc
US Customs sucks... you are in "no mans land" where you have no rights even though you are a US citizen. Messed up...
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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myshoesarered
Mushabelly Snoozem



Registered: 12/12/07
Posts: 377
Loc: The Mitt
Last seen: 15 years, 6 months
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: Seuss]
#7959924 - 01/31/08 11:51 AM (16 years, 1 day ago) |
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Don't worry about it too much. The same thing happened to some friends and I at the Germany/Czech border. They had us come inside, we sat around for a while, then they told us we could leave. The car was never so much as glanced at. Probably just some random thing.
-------------------- "What a beautiful face I have found in this place that is circling all round the sun, and when we meet on a cloud I'll be laughing out loud, I'll be laughing at everyone I see, Can't believe, how strange it is to be anything at all..." "...nobody has yet died of amazement & you always come back to planet Earth..."
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Prisoner#1
Even Dumber ThanAdvertized!


Registered: 01/22/03
Posts: 193,665
Loc: Pvt. Pubfag NutSuck
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: SillyButtons]
#7967786 - 02/02/08 07:48 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
SillyButtons said: "Do you want to do me a favor? Pull over to the left and come inside, please."
"You are free to go."
I sat in customs at the canadian border for 7 hours, they stripped the truck, pulled speakers out of the boxes, valve covers and dismounted tires from the rims. we were then refused entry to canada, had to have the truck towed back to watertown for us to reassemble, we also endured the same treatment from the US customs officials even though we never actually crossed the border
what happened to you? absolutely nothing...
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RogerRabbit
Bans for Pleasure



Registered: 03/26/03
Posts: 42,214
Loc: Seattle
Last seen: 11 months, 3 days
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: Seuss]
#7970443 - 02/02/08 08:27 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: or they wanted to see if you started to freak (indication that you are smuggling something)...
Exactly. While you were sitting there for 15 minutes 'alone', they were watching you on video, and listening in to your conversation, to see if you were acting nervous. You must have passed the test. RR
-------------------- Download Let's Grow Mushrooms semper in excretia sumus solim profundum variat "I've never had a failed experiment. I've only discovered 10,000 methods which do not work." Thomas Edison
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snoot
look alive ∞




Registered: 01/30/05
Posts: 9,640
Loc: 45º parallel
Last seen: 6 hours, 35 minutes
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: RogerRabbit]
#7973874 - 02/03/08 03:57 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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me and absolute zero had his car ripped apart going into canada, but coming back into the US was ezpz. I think thats a bit backward
--------------------
∞ I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. - Simone de Beauvoir -
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Poid
Shroomery's #1 Spellir




Registered: 02/04/08
Posts: 40,372
Loc: SF Bay Area
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: SillyButtons]
#7980544 - 02/04/08 10:23 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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You know, I think those cops were just deceiving you to see if you would get frightened, just incase you were some kind of dangerous criminal or something. Cops do it all the time, and I'm not even sure that it is legal.
-------------------- Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. -- Bob Dylan  fireworks_god said:It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.
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ZippoZ
Knomadic



Registered: 06/17/03
Posts: 13,227
Loc: Pongyang, North Korea
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: Poid]
#7989061 - 02/06/08 08:48 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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dont think anything of it, i get fucked with every single time i cross the damn us/canada border.
even got denied access back into the usa while trying to import a car (i had all the right paperwork)
i swear i know the ambassador bridge customs detention facility in detroit like the back of my hand.
-------------------- PEACE
zippoz "in times of widespread chaos and confusion, it has been the duty of more advanced human beings - artists, scientists, clowns, and philosophers - to create order. In such times as ours however, when there is too much order, too much m management, too much programming and control, it becomes the duty of superior men and women and women to fling their favorite monkey wrenches into the machinery. To relieve the repression of the human spirit, they must sow doubt and disruption" "People do it every day, they talk to themselves ... they see themselves as they'd like to be, they don't have the courage you have, to just run with it."
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fastfred
Old Hand



Registered: 05/17/04
Posts: 6,899
Loc: Dark side of the moon
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: ZippoZ]
#8016151 - 02/13/08 01:18 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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> > So like I said earlier, what the fuck happened to us?
Ummm... That's standard operating procedure at customs. About every 10th car or so gets that treatment. Everyone comming from a concert or festival gets that treatment.
Last time I crossed the cop BSed with us for a bit as we were waiting, then told us "Well you know I have to search the car." We were probably the most respectable people crossing the border that day, but they searched EVERY car comming from that festival.
-FF
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GoodbyeOrb
Self-SacrificingPotency Tester



Registered: 04/09/07
Posts: 5,179
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: fastfred]
#8021347 - 02/14/08 08:12 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
fastfred said: Last time I crossed the cop BSed with us for a bit as we were waiting, then told us "Well you know I have to search the car." they searched EVERY car comming from that festival. -FF
Excuse me for my ignorance concerning border crossing, but are the officials not governed by the same laws as police when searches are concerned?
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
Loc: Caribbean
Last seen: 2 months, 20 days
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: GoodbyeOrb]
#8021380 - 02/14/08 08:27 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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> concerning border crossing, but are the officials not governed by the same laws as police when searches are concerned?
Nope. I don't understand why, but they are not. U.S. Customs Service has the "right" to stop and search every person and every item entering the country.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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GoodbyeOrb
Self-SacrificingPotency Tester



Registered: 04/09/07
Posts: 5,179
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: Seuss]
#8021473 - 02/14/08 08:54 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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So why is it that we can manage to keep capitalist and his car out of the US, but we can't manage to keep a million illegal mexicans out? I am so tired of "supporting my brother man."
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Prisoner#1
Even Dumber ThanAdvertized!


Registered: 01/22/03
Posts: 193,665
Loc: Pvt. Pubfag NutSuck
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: GoodbyeOrb]
#8030553 - 02/16/08 09:24 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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illegal alien rarely come through customs checkpoints
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GoodbyeOrb
Self-SacrificingPotency Tester



Registered: 04/09/07
Posts: 5,179
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Re: US Customs encounter. What the hell just happened to me? [Re: Prisoner#1]
#8030840 - 02/16/08 11:13 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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i know i know, just wishful thinking
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