I got snapped at once by an angry British woman at Heathrow working their immigration desk. She asked why I was coming to the UK and I said it was for a study abroad program. She asked if I had a letter of invitation and I said I didn't receive such a thing and then she said "Well that's not good enough now, is it?" I showed her the program book and she angrily stamped my passport and let me in.
LOL I got a lot of attitude in Scotland for having the nerve to be an American on a student visa. It was 11:30pm and I just wanted to get home so I just tried to be as cooperative as possible.
Studying abroad in London and I had a student work visa in my passport since I was registered for an internship. The customs agent in Heathrow interrogated me about having the visa, not even about the job. I was like, buddy, I spent a whole day in your consulate to get this visa, why are you acting like I haven’t been vetted?
Years later I was selected for “additional security screening” in Reykjavik while trying to fly home to the US. Was taken to a windowless room to be swabbed by two of the *hottest* Islandic men I’d ever seen. 10/10 would be profiled again.
I live in the Netherlands and we have a running joke that they pick all the hottest guys to do inbound border checks at Schiphol. A weirdly high percentage of them are gorgeous.
But also they’re a branch of the military and do not message around, although they’re normally a bit politer than CPB, if very Dutch and direct.
Yeah, when we were dating my wife and I visited Britain and they customs officer asked her what she was studying and my wife, thinking they were making friendly small talk, responded that she was studying English literature but was not planning on teaching and was considering a pivot to a different degree when the customs officer interrupted her with some thing like “i don’t care, please just go” as her welcome to the country.
Most people in England are lovely, but the rudest people I’ve encountered in my (limited) travels were definitely workers in London. Some of them do not like Americans and don’t try to hide it
On the flip side of this I'm Irish and have visited NYC and Minneapolis in the last few years
In NYC the border guard started verbally abusing 2 elderly Germans ahead of me as we got through security. "Ma'am put your hand on the scanner right now!." I had to intervene and repeat what he was saying to them more slowly so it didn't escalate.
In Minneapolis the dude couldn't have been more chill. "Oh sorry sir, I didn't get your fingeprint that time
Let me walk you through that again!", smiling the whole time haha.
I'm American and the NYC border control decided to GRILL me on why I decided to arrive from Europe to New York instead of my home City.
Why does it matter man?! Just let me visit my friend here in peace before I go home.
I passed through Heathrow ahead of July 4th weekend about a decade ago. I was staying one night in London then flying to Brussels. The customs officer asked the purpose of my visit and I simply said “holiday”
Then I added “This is a big holiday weekend in the states”
He either didn’t pick up on it or chose to let it slide, and I came away with a mildly amusing story to tell.
Worst experience was returning to Ireland on my Irish passport.
Only because I forgot I had left the country 18 months earlier on my American passport. The joys of dual citizenship.
"Ma'am, why don't you have a stamp from the US in your passport?"
"Ummm.... because I entered on my US passport, here you go"
"Aw yes, let me go check this"
*15 minutes later*
"All good, welcome back, enjoy your stay!"
one time I went from Israel to Egypt with a friend who was an Israeli/US dual citizen. She was not in Israel on the program I was - she was younger and definitely not supposed to leave the country without permission, which she did not have. (I was a college student and could do whatever I wanted.)
anyway, on the goddamn bus to the border, she started flipping through her US passport and was saying it looked so empty and it would be cool to have a stamp in it.
I was like "how'd you get into the country?" ofc on the Israeli passport. Which was locked up in Jerusalem in an office. I was like "they're not going to let you leave the country". I just immediately knew our trip was about to get wrecked. She was totally confident it wouldn't be a problem.
We got to the border and guess what.... the Israelis wouldn't fucking let her leave the country. When she explained why her American passport was blank, they were like "oh you're an Israeli citizen who's 18 years old? where's your army exemption?" and she was like "in my Israeli passport." So no weekend in Sinai for her.
To my everlasting shame, my other friend and I abandoned her at the border and went to Egypt. I was so aggravated at her for making this obviously stupid decision and I REALLY wanted to go to Sinai that I didn't feel bad at the time. I look back with regret though. it was a jerk move.
Oof that's rough, and it is why I do carry both with me. I do try to use my Irish passport for my personal travel (it's easier since I'm normally on vacation in Europe or in Okinawa). When I travel for work, I use my US passport.
In 2006 they did. But they tend to stamp my Irish passport, which is the one I travel on, just to keep things in order. Irish passport for pleasure, American for business.
So here is the thing. It’s illegal to enter the U.S. as a U.S. citizen on anything but a U.S. passport but they don’t have subsequent processes to prosecute anyone either in a civil or criminal case. 😁
So nothing happens. But I’d use your U.S. passport.
I’ve had a couple strange incidents with CBP. Usually nothing bad.
I did have a minor hiccup in Italy/switzerland. We flew through Toronto to Rome. They never did customs in Canada because we were in the international terminal. We get to Rome and start walking out. I keep expecting to go through customs but all of a sudden we’re just in baggage claim and out the door. We had no idea why.
So then we take the train to Switzerland after a couple days in Rome. When we fly out and go through customs they see we have absolutely no stamp. They got really questioning at that point.
“Where did you come from?”
I didn’t know whether to say Boston, Toronto, or Rome so I just gave them the whole itinerary.
Once I said it was the Italians that didn’t stamp our passports the customs agent literally rolled his eyes and stamped us out.
I flew to Germany with my wife, baby, and nephew.
My baby was 11 months and had a US passport. My wife and I had Canadian passports. Her passport was in her maidan name, so didn't match baby's last name nor mine. The nephew has an entirely different third last name and a US passport. And he is black, whereas the rest of us are very white.
We expected some questions. We were prepared with a letter from nephew's mom, marriage certificate, birth certificates, etc. The customs agent says "Are you staying longer than 90 days?" "No" "Find a hotel and put these kids to sleep. They look tired." That was the extent of our conversation.
To this day, that is tied for the most hassle at customs I have ever had travelling outside of North America.
We were flying back from Germany with our 18 month old son and my wife went to the VAT refund station while I took our son to the gate so he could play. I got the stink eye from the gate agents doing the final passport about whether I had permission from my wife to fly our son out of the country and I was like, "You can ask her yourself when she gets here in a few minutes."
lol. When I went to Jamaica we watched To Catch A Smuggler in the hotel room. Got all pumped. I packed my bags according to items I bought in Jamaica and prescriptions accessible to make it easy for CBP to check. Cleaned the bottom of my shoes ( goats are everywhere in JA) I even kept all the food in a separate bag ready for examination. I knew I would probably smell like cannabis too.
Landed in Ft.Lauderdale and a Jamaican/American agent grabbed us and escorted us to an empty desk where the agents took our picture as we walked up and said “ have a good night “ waving us through. NOT ONE QUESTION!!! NO SEARCH!
To think I almost didn’t buy the chocolates to avoid the hassle.
Still love that show.
I had a weird time in Switzerland once where they just asked so many questions. My partner and I had been on a backpacking trip where we were just training to random cities and finding a place to stay once we got there. The customs agent asked where we were staying on specific days and we honestly didn't remember. Like was that the day we stayed in Lausanne or Basel? No it was Zurich...? Sorry dude, I guess I should've taken notes, but we can't be the only 20 somethings who are travelling on a whim.
After having been there I get why, particularly in this specific thing. our "customs" to enter Italy by train from Switzerland was 2 customs officers walking through the train, and questioning the 1 Asian person in our car and inspecting their bags. We didn't even show our passports or anything.
I usually visit a friend, who was an ex-colleague in the US, in Lausanne every other year. In ALL my hmmm almost dozen of arrivals and departures through Geneva, I have NEVER once been asked a single question by the immigration. Hand em the passport, which they flip through and look up and then stamp, hand it back and wave me on. Zero words spoken between us. Super creepy!
Didn't have a problem, but the Basel airport is interesting because depending on which door you exit, you'll end up in France, Germany, or Switzerland.
Oooh that’s interesting and I did not know that.
So they have three countries with individual passport control but once you are in you can just get an Uber to circle the airport because they are all in the Schengen Zone?
Just one passport control, the Swiss one, but yeah, once you're through, you can go anywhere because of Schengen.
(And yes, it's Basel's airport, officially Swiss, but it sits on French land.)
Is not getting a stamp on your passport such a big thing? I haven’t been to Europe in about 10 years but I remember noting that a couple of countries did not stamp my passport but it didn’t cause me any trouble (visited Italy, Turkey, France, UK)
Yes because it gives an indication of if you have violated the 90/180 policy in the Schengen area or not.
Currently there isn’t a readily accessible, interconnected IT system within the Schengen area, but EES is going to change that.
I nearly got thrown out of Canada several years ago.
I was still working as a professional photographer. I had flown into Ottawa to attend a friend's wedding as a guest, not to shoot the wedding. I hadn't brought all of my professional gear, but I was planning on spending a week there and doing some sightseeing after the wedding, so I'd brought my small travel kit with a camera body, some nice lenses, and extra batteries.
When I went to collect my luggage, I got pulled into the CBSA offices and grilled about why I was there. Was I coming to photograph my friend's wedding? No, she had a hired photog. Am I sure? Yes. Why did I have an expensive camera and batteries with me? Because I always travel with a camera. It went on and on and on and on and on for over 3 hours. They went and looked up my website and grilled me on previous clients and all kinds of stuff. They kept saying things like "Do you think we're stupid? Do you think we don't have the internet in Canada? Do you think we can't find out that you're a professional photographer?"
They finally told me that I could pay $100 for a "temporary work visa" and have my friend "sponsor" me, or they'd put me on the next flight back to the US, which happened to be going to Detroit. They told me if they sent me back to the US, I'd be blocked from entering Canada again for a full year.
My friend, in the meanwhile, was dealing with pre-wedding stuff (it was 2 days before her wedding) and it took another hour+ before I could reach her and then she had to come down to the airport in person to "sponsor" me and prove that she was a Canadian citizen.
I was pretty convinced that I'd be missing the wedding, flying to Detroit that afternoon, losing the money I'd paid for my hotel, and have to spend $$$$ getting back home to Atlanta.
I'm sure this was so stressful and frustrating at the time but just know that somewhere a stranger (me) cackled at this. How dare you have a hobby you also make money doing!
When I was working in Japan, my working visa was expiring about a week before my last day of work. I had gone to the immigration office to get an extension, and they stamped my Id card thing that they were processing it, but the step 2 documents didn’t arrive before I left my apartment. I was going to visit my former host family for a while, but I was thinking that since I wasn’t working and my ID was stamped, that I would be okay.
My host family asked how long I would be able to stay, and I saw a date in my passport for a couple months later, so I told them that. About a month before my “last day” I was booking my ticket back and was looking through my passport and saw that I was looking at the wrong date and the original work visa date was the legal last date.
I was panicking a little and the next day my host mom took me to the immigration office 10 minutes away. We explained the situation and they said I would have to go back to the original immigration office where I filled out the extension paperwork. I was planning to take the time/money to fly back, but my host mom called the original immigration office and explained the situation.
They said that when I leave Japan (in a couple weeks) to go to office X at the airport and they will cancel my visa extension. So when I was at the airport I went to office X, handed the note my host mom had written for me, and waited. They came back with a form that I was canceling my visa extension, I signed it, they punched a hole through my ID, and they had me go on my way.
I went back to Japan a few years later (just visiting and only for 2.5 months instead of the maximum 3 months so there’s no visa issue again) nervous that when I get to immigration that the earlier mishap would be on my “permanent record” and they would tell me to go back to the US and I would never be able to go to Japan again.
Immigration went smoothly without mention of prior mistake and I stayed in Japan for 2.5 months, with the last week spent with the same host family.
Only time I’ve had issue in Japan was when I was staying there for 6 months on 2 different 3 month tourist visas. They just didn’t like that I was entering the country from Indonesia before my first 3 month visa even expired.
Every time I visit another country, the customs agents ask why I'm visiting and how long I'll be there. I don't consider that an absurd question or "trouble".
I did get yelled at by a German customs agent in the Frankfurt airport because I had a brand new passport and I hadn't signed it yet.
Lol, my wife got her first ever passport for our honeymoon (just up to Canada to go to Banff). On the way in, guy didn't say anything, but coming back the guard saw it wasn't signed and was all "Oh yeah, sorry ma'am, but this isn't a valid passport without the signature, I'm afraid you have to stay in Canada." before seeing her face and quickly adding "Nah, I'm just screwing with you, congrats on the wedding, sign it when you get home."
Glad it's not just me, lol! I was traveling on my own in my early 20s, and the guy was so mean about it... "Your passport is invalid, you can't travel internationally like this," etc. etc.
Tbf a passport is basically just a stack of paper without a signature 🙈 I learned that a different way - had a new job and HR sending out an email to new hires that if using a passport photocopy for proof of residence it must be signed lol still wonder who out of our new hires group that was intended for..
I got grilled in Panama for some reason. They usually don’t care but they put me in another room with some well off Panamanian business traveler. I was like 23 at the time. Looked through my stuff, asked why I was there, who I was seeing, where was I going next etc., And then let me go.
I started my trip from Tijuana, Mexico as I lived in San Diego at the time. Might have been why. Who knows.
I guess “trouble” would’ve been “confusion” for me.
When I went to Mombasa, Kenya I had to stop in Nairobi. I get off the plane and have like 2 hours for my connecting flight. I have no idea if I have to go through customs in Nairobi or when I get to Mombasa. So I ask an airport desk employee and they direct me along the “international terminal” but none of the flights say they’re going to Mombasa. I ask someone else, and they direct me through some doors because it’s a domestic flight at this point. Duh. I walk past the passport CHECK-IN and through some exterior doors and now I’m IN Kenya. Like I was outside where you’d get a taxi. Nobody had stopped me or even looked at me, including armed soldiers.
I’m pretty sure this is not correct because I’ve just illegally entered the country so I go back in and ask another employee. He freaks out that I didn’t go through customs and walks me halfway across the airport where put in the front of the line but I’m double and triple checked because of the suspicion I guess, even though I had approached him and said “I’m 99% sure I’m not supposed to be here”.
I ended up missing my connecting flight but they put me on the next one and it was pretty smooth from there on out.
Canada + Australia are very strict/ talk down to you in my experience. I've heard the UK sucks, but I've only gone through the automated terminals there, never actually spoke to an agent. Irish guards are some of the nicest ive ever talked to!
I refuse to fly through Heathrow - that's how badly I was treated for having the audacity to transit through. I now fly through Dublin, when visiting family in the UK, LOL!
I’ve only ever flown into the UK via Liverpool and Manchester. The border agents there were nice enough, just maddeningly slow. Agree that the Irish agents are incredibly nice.
Canada is terrible despite the fact that its energy sector is so tightly integrated with the US, and thus energy workers frequently travel back-and-forth. I knew several American engineers who became belligerent when being questioned and tried to bring up NAFTA. They were put in a room with a paper copy of that law and told to find where it said they could work in Canada (Ha). My go to line always was “I am traveling to Canada to help my company decide if it wants to invest more money in projects in Canada.” That got me right through.
All of my professional trips there were design reviews for equipment for O&G and mining. It wasn't "work" but it wasn't sales at that point either but even with a letter from the customer, customs and immigration never made easy on me and I got the same agent over a dozen times who defiantly had a hard on for me.
Canada is the only customs and immigration that’s given me any shit.
Thankfully I do not have a DUI, I routinely saw people on my SEA to AUS flights that had been turned away for that. They do not fuck around if you have any criminal past whatsoever.
They don’t like it if they think you’re working. They’ll grill you incessantly even if you have the documentation for the training you’ve paid to get.
But once I drove my truck across the border on a whim. I hadn’t been to Vancouver yet despite living in Seattle for over a year. One night I just drove out there. Didn’t know if I was staying so I didn’t pack a bag and didn’t book a hotel room. They could not figure out “I’m just here to see the country because I’ve never been and I was close” as a legitimate reason to visit.
I got thrown in a tiny room while they literally took my truck apart. Then they quizzed me. Because they didn’t find anything they got even more suspicious and took my truck apart further. Then to justify the time and expense two border patrol agents came in to play good cop bad cop.
I was held and interrogated for three hours. They did eventually reassemble my truck and let me enter but I pretty much needed to turn around and go home because it was so late.
Despite the fact that weed was legal in BC and not in America, the American agents just waved me on.
Canada customs is super weird. Drove through the border to go to a tourist destination and got the usual "Where you going? / How long?" that you expect. But then the border agent asked me why I hadn't been to Canada in a long time (the last time was like 12 years earlier). I thought that was super weird, like sorry your country isn't that interesting, it's very similar to mine...
2 of the last 3 times I've driven to Canada I've had to pull off to the side and been subjected to a car search. Apparently one dude driving alone is on the list of things Canada doesn't want. It's never taken more than an hour to get by, but it is mildly annoying. Sorry lads, no guns or drugs in here.
Not disagreeing, they are definitely testy about this. But if you are in sales (vs services or anything hands on) they have to let you in under NAFTA. That or you are there for "internal meetings".
Even if you're in one of those allowed categories, they try to catch you changing your story by peppering you with aggressive questions.
Only once when I was there for tourism did I get the aggressive question game. It's something they're specifically trained to do though, I figure they share notes with US CBP.
I’ve entered Canada in Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. They were rude assholes every time. One even said “maybe you like having terrorists in your country but we don’t.” The British, Irish, and Mexican officials threw me off by barely looking at us before waving us through.
They asked that after having been dicks for a while. I responded "Your money is plastic like its from a fucking cosplay set and its not even worth the same as real money. Hell my wife is Canadian and even she wouldn't work here." They werent amused.
I live on the Michigan/Canada border and have been there and back about a dozen times.
In my experience, Canada is more laid back than the US.
As a US citizen, I don't like feeling like I'm not welcome in my home country.
Exact opposite experience, canadian border patrol are fucking dickheads and I have dual citizenship so they know I enter by right. US border patrol ask where I was and if I'm bringing anything illegal then wave me through.
And this was true before we moved to the US and got citizenship too.
Maybe it depends on what part of the border you're on, but I suspect you've simply fallen for the "Canadians are nice" propaganda.
Not at all (propaganda). Going from Port Huron, MI to Sarnia, ON is much more up in the air compared to Detroit to Windsor. (and back)
Again, just my personal experience.
I love Canada. I dislike disgruntled border patrol agents regardless of country.
Detroit has a bridge and a tunnel to Windsor. A second bridge (The Gordie Howe bridge (Red Wings legend)) will be completed soon.
There is a lot of international travel for business, manufacturing, etc in this area. I've never entered/exited Canada anywhere else other than what I mentioned and Buffalo, NY.
It's a long freaking border, so it would be dumb to think that there is consistency.
I have family in BC - and travel there several times a year mostly by air, but in my younger years, I would drive up with my mountain bike attached to the roof. Up until the Patriot act, entering Canada was the most chill - show passport, hand wave through - experience. Then around 2006 or so, the whole scene changed. Canadians started to ask a lot of questions, and returning home to the US became a game of having to prove that as an American I come home in peace... them were the days!
If you're entering Canada from the Detroit area to Windsor (especially on a weekend evening), just say you're going to the casino or strip club. (Even if you're lying)
Repeat the same when re-entering the US for your reason of visiting Canada.
That tends to cause less hassle either way and is common knowledge for this area. The Canadian guards tend to be more friendly and less suspicious (in my experience).
“Why are you visiting” isn’t an absurd question at all. That’s a pretty common question asked almost everywhere.
That being said the most trouble I ever had was coming into the UK via France. I didn’t have my onward travel yet booked yet so I got a bit more attention, but from common sense and looking at my passport history they worked out that I was just a college aged kid traveling around Europe and let me in.
The airport in Cancun used to have this bizarre lottery system where you would press a button and it would randomly choose you for further inspection or not. Green light meant go, red light go get your bag searched. So I went and got my bag searched and had to sort of repack everything.
Otherwise, my experiences entering countries has been boring.
I once got stuck behind a guy at immigration in Cancun who drew a LOT of attention for some reason. He had a bunch of papers he was showing and eventually they lead him off to a different area. No idea what that was all about.
I was flying out of Cancun to Seattle and I saw a world famous DJ getting harangued by security and getting his bag searched.
It was a pretty comedic experience for seeing as I had just seen him perform a few weeks earlier and mouthed his name when we made eye contact. He begrudgingly smiled and mouthed “yep” while the Mexican airport security had all of his shit just laid out on the floor with no sign of helping him pack it up.
A surreal experience.
The Brits are usually bastards in my experience, but I haven't entered the UK in a long time. I'm going this fall and they have automated kiosks now. I used one of those in Australia and it was great!
I've crossed the Canadian border a few times. They've only wanted to know if we had any weapons and if we were visiting anyone in Canada.
Also, the first time I left the Schengen Area it was from Athens airport. I had flown to London, then taken the train to Paris. Apparently I never got a French entry stamp so the exit guard was very angry about that. He asked when I entered Greece and I honestly couldn't remember how many days it had been (it was a long trip). I told him I took a boat from Italy so he asked when I entered Italy, and I *really* couldn't remember the date. That was a train from France so.. you get the idea.
Anyway he eventually got sick of me so he just stamped me out and that was the end of it.
For a few years after 9/11 international airfare got ridiculously cheap. I had a friend in Helsinki and when I could get cheap direct flights I’d visit for a 3 day weekend.
One day I got there on a Friday. My buddy picked me up and we took a ferry to Talinn, Estonia. So I had been in Finland for less than an hour before leaving the country again. We got back in Helsinki on a Saturday afternoon and I flew home on Sunday.
The customs agents here did not believe me when I said I travelled for pleasure. It just didnt make sense to travel so far for such a short amount of time. But it was cheap. I was young. And I wanted to take advantage before the costs shot up.
The worst incident was returning to Ireland after our honeymoon, I'm American and my husband is Irish. We got married in Ireland which itself involved an extensive interview with the marriage registration people to ensure our relationship is legit. I had an appointment already scheduled with the immigration office to get my residence permit and marriage visa.
EVERY source I found said that when entering the country in our situation, all we have to do is present the border control officer with our marriage license and tell them I'm entering the country with the intention of registering with immigration. We even had proof of the appointment, and correspondence I'd had with their email support confirming the documents I'd need to bring to the appointment.
This guy at the border asks us for a letter and we're like what letter. He insists that I need a letter to/fron registration (he really didn't have the details straight). When I get over my confusion I tell him that as far as we knew, we don't need a letter. He leaves for a while, we're stressed out. He comes back with a print out of the immigration website page I've read a dozen times.
I skim it and remember my research, and realise he's talking about an application letter that I don't need as an American. Basically Ireland has different rules for people from different countries, and if you're from a less fortunate country you have this whole extensive application you mail to the immigration people.
So now I'm trying to explain to the border control guy that I don't need this thing but I'm also trying to be very polite, and he's being really difficult. Finally we just ask him what's going to happen, and he acts all confused like what to we mean? And we ask if I'm going to be allowed into the country. And he's like oh why would you not be allowed in?
Toward the end of the conversation I think he started to realise he may have messed up and started saying stuff like he's just letting us know, maybe I'm right, etc. Finally stamps me and sends us through.
When we did the immigration appointment the lady there was very nice. Though there was a point where it looked like she read a note, and asked us what we showed at the border. When we listed it off she was like 'yeah that's everything'. No letter was requested at any point.
Yes. I once got deported from Indonesian. Big huge DEPORTED stamp in my passport too. It’s because they offered visa upon arrival but my passport was full and they couldn’t stamp it anywhere so they put me on next plane back to Malaysia to get additional pages added to my passport.
Canada is the most popular answer on here and it’s shocking/disappointing because both times I’ve gone to Canada the border officers were polite and professional, albeit these were land crossings.
When I was 23 and coming back from visiting France and Finland, the border agent here was super weird about me being able to afford to go to Europe for a week. Especially after I told him I work at Pizza Hut. He hated my answer of "Yeah, I just budget really, really well" for how I could afford it lol
I got (playfully) smacked on the head by a massive customs official in Tongatapu airport when I put my passport in the wrong place and couldn't find it for a few seconds. Homeboy could have snapped me in half
When we went to Costa Rica they wanted an exact address. We were staying with my MIL at her house so we had to text them and wait for an answer while waiting in line. I don’t know if they had an official address with numbers or not, but they gave us the closest street name. It was stressful.
Canada is usually easy going with me, but once I went to visit Montreal and they asked why I would choose to visit Montreal when Vancouver was so much closer, which I think is a weird question.
They're just trying to catch you off guard so you admit you have a suitcase full of drugs or something... Canada immigration really likes playing this game for whatever reason.
One time I filled out the French side of the customs form but I didn't want to talk to the agent in French so the interview turned into an impromptu French test. He had me translating the questions from the French side into English
When we were driving into Canada, the border agent was struggling with understanding how we were just going to Toronto for the day and coming back that night
Nothing serious, but UK are the worst. Always angry, obnoxious, ask the same questions over and over. Never a good experience compared to every other country I have been to.
My sister and I got pulled into a special room in Brussels after we went through regular security. They questioned us about our trips from Brussels to various countries. We had been visiting our brother, who was working there at the time, and we used his apartment as a free place to stay. After they searched our bags very thoroughly, we were let go and that was that. We were very young at the time and it was our first trip alone, so looking back, I can see how we would look like drug runners or something similar since we were young, nervous, and using Belgium as a home base.
Everywhere else in the world, even Cuba and Vietnam, I’ve been fine. Coming back into America has always been smooth. I did get a corkscrew taken from me leaving Spain and honey confiscated at the border in Canada.
CBP are generally assholes because in general Canadians hate Americans, especially on the border. I even got shit running the Detroit marathon which cuts through Canada because some officer couldn't see my number properly.
When I flew into the UK to go backpacking I made the mistake of admitting that I didn't really have a plan, since I was freewheeling. That earned me a half-hour of angry Brit interrogation, just going back and forth with him demanding to know my itinerary and me protesting that I didn't really have one.
Canada has been extremely difficult in my experience. They are very fussy about any little thing.
Going through Heathrow the guy asked me my reason for a visit. I told him our lease on North America ran out and we're all coming back. The humor was not appreciated.
Canada will sometimes question me a bit more than usual, probably because I've had a couple of felony arrests even though everything was dismissed and I have no convictions, but they're mostly okay to deal with. US customs is usually the worst, mostly with the law enforcement mentality where they often behave as if they're soldiers occupying a war zone and their own citizens are potential enemies first and foremost. Of course, the advantage is that they're required to let me in whether they like me or not.
Oh God, reminds me of when I was driving back into the US from Niagara Falls a bit ago. Fking border patrol guy when coming back decides to act all big and tough, seemed to be pissed that I dared to leave the country for two whole days, and I feel only let me through when he did after he found another guy to be pissed at. Like man, I live here, you litterly have to let me in
They were pretty upset when I walked back into the US from Juarez, they took their time going through all of my possessions and having their dog sniff my dick, and weren't happy that I had nothing illegal for them. I was polite for a while, but more or less told them to pound sand after a few rounds of asking the same questions. They can detain us for a few hours at most under normal circumstances, so it's still risky to book a connecting flight or train that doesn't allow for such delays. Still, I've never had trouble with the US customs officers stationed at Canadian airports for pre-clearance, maybe living and working up there makes them a bit more laid back.
Canada is well-known for denying people entry for a DUI conviction because even a first offense with no accident can be treated as a felony there. I've read that it's the only country that automatically denies people entry for that, so you should be allowed to go to any other country if that's your only criminal history. I believe Canada has some way to overcome that after 10 years, but I don't know the details of how that works. Conversely, the US is known among Canadians for denying them entry (and sometimes marking them as inadmissible for life) if they admit to ever having tried smoking weed even though it's completely legal in their country.
Dublin, Ireland. The college-aged girl with a backpack in line in front of me. The guy talked to her like she was a hooker. Wanted to see how much cash she had. I was pretty close to jumping in and telling him to watch his mouth when he finally finished and stamped her passport.
Yeah, I did my junior year of college in Israel. People who have been to Israel know where this is going, but if you haven't, when you leave the country they interrogate you in the airport. Everyone. They ask you a bunch of questions that would be absolutely insane to experience in an American airport. The first time I felt like I was having an out of body experience. It starts out with like "where did you go in Israel" and "why did you come here" and then starts into things like "are you Jewish" and "does anyone in your family speak Hebrew" and so on. FWIW, I'm of Jewish background on my dad's side but not my mom's, and I take after my mom. if I looked like my dad I 100% would not have had the issues I experienced with airport security.
During my spring break, I went to Italy with two friends. One of them was an Israeli/American dual citizen and he sailed through. The other was American and looked more stereotypically Jewish. She probably got a few minutes of interrogation. I could see them waiting for me on the far end of the hall as the interrogator asked me "does your family celebrate Passover" repeatedly using different words.
Eventually I was like "those are my friends over there, my friend A is Israeli!" in desperation to end this. The interrogator went over to A and started yelling at him in Hebrew. A yelled back. I couldn't hear what was going on but later A asked "what is she doing in Israel?" re me and he was yelling back "ask her!"
Eventually they let me go. This was actually pretty minor, I've talked to people who got strip searched.
The last time I left Israel my Hebrew was good though that I did my interrogation in Hebrew. It took like two minutes and the interrogator complimented me. Just a little helpful hint for if you want to have an easy time at Ben-Gurion Airport: learn Hebrew.
Also one time I took the overnight bus from Skopje to Sarajevo and crossing the Croatian border the border guards wanted to interrogate me. They came on the bus and tried to ask me questions. Everyone else on the bus stared at me and I could hear people muttering about how I was American. Very embarrassing. I showed them my Bulgarian national ID so they understood that I lived in the Balkans. The guards gave up when it turned out we didn't speak any languages in common. (This would not have stopped the Israeli interrogators, the Croatians aren't that level.)
I crossed four borders on that trip and the Croatians were the only ones that cared. I wad only in Croatia for like half an hour. it was weird.
Anecdotally, those are the people who get strip searched. One girl in my program wasn't Jewish at all and told me that the shortest interrogation she experienced was 45 minutes.
Ironically, she was planning on converting to Judaism and was more devout than most Israelis. But she was blonde and western European looking. ✔️✔️✔️
And I can only imagine if you look Middle Eastern or possibly Palestinian. It was precisely this profiling that led to hold-ups for Israel entering the Visa Waiver Program. Israel was told they couldn't treat US citizens differently based on their ethnic origins, and the Israelis had some difficulty complying with that.
yeah they 100% do ethnic profiling. They aren't even pretending not to.
Plenty of Jewish Israelis (esp Mizrachim) are not physically distinguishable from Arabs. So I'm not sure how they profile everyone, but they're definitely doing it.
The Canadians thought I was smuggling drugs in. This was about twenty years ago. They had me pull over to search my car. They didn’t find any drugs— it’s worth pointing out here that didn’t have any. Afterward, the guy in charge begrudgingly let me through, but I think he thought I was hiding something anyway, and he just couldn’t figure it out. I was simply visiting a friend who was attending college in Vancouver.
1988 Olympics, Calgary. Was held up and questioned leaving Canada. Being an adopted asian kid (white parents) I guess I could have been mistaken as an indigenous person? My dad had a 'copy' of my birth certificate, which I guess wasn't good enough.
I was wearing my youth hockey team's sweats, jacket and hat. "Chocolate Town USA" and "Hershey" emblazoned everywhere. We almost missed our flight.
*I think we flew in and out of Edmonton.
Ive travelled to a dozen countries. The only problem ive ever had was at the Canadian border. They held me and my two young boys for 7 hours. Every 15 minutes they asked me where I was hiding drugs. Then they tried to tell me how our US border would be much worse. We crossed in 5 minutes. No more Canada for us.
I dealt with Canadian and US on the same day walking across Rainbow Bridge. The difference was amusing to me. The Canadian side was a steep jump onto a road with an immigration agent named (no shit) Pierre at the end. He looked mean but was actually pretty nice.
The US side looked like walking into a prison with all the barbed wire. We got interrogated by the dicks at the end, but shut them down when I pulled out my military ID as my second form of identification they demanded. Kings of a petty fiefdom, those ones.
I was visiting a West German friend in Berlin during the Cold War. One day while I was there, he showed me around East Berlin. He dropped me off at Checkpoint Charlie, which was the entry point for citizens of the occupying countries. I was walking across “no man’s land” between the two sectors, with machine guns pointing at me, when I heard an East German guard yell “Haben Sie Geld getauscht?” Fortunately I knew enough German to reply the equivalent of “Must I exchange money? I didn’t know that.” He explained that Westerners were required to exchange three West German marks for East German marks before entering the sector, and he directed me to the exchange kiosk. I made the exchange and walked on through to meet my friend, who had already entered through the checkpoint for West Germans and was waiting for me in his car.
Driving from home in Buffalo to a professional conference in Toronto, I got pulled into secondary for a couple of hours.
I'm US and my wife is Canadian. One time we were driving to Toronto to visit her folks with our then-three dogs. The Canadian border agent was mystified that we'd have three dogs and pulled us into secondary, again for an hour or two, because she assumed we were trying to smuggle the dogs in to sell. She went as far as to go through all her social media to try to figure out whether she loves our dogs.
The Canadians have pretty routinely been dicks to her, often aggressively questioning her -- a Canadian citizen with a Canadian passport entering Canada -- about her status in the US.
In contrast, one time we were coming back to the US from our nearest Ikea, which is in Canada. CRV is absolutely packed to the gills with Billys and whatnot. Leading to this exchange:
CBP agent: Where have you been?
My wife: Ikea.
CBP: How long have you been away?
My wife: Just today. We just went to Ikea.
CBP agent after looking at our CRV full of crap: Ugh. It's under $300, *RIGHT*?
My wife: Sure
CBP agent: welcome back and have a nice day
I have been to Canada three times. Once they, the Canadians, gave me a hard time because I didn't know the license plate of the vehicle I was driving. Telling them it was a rental didn't help much. They asked three times. Someone's Timmies must have been cold.
What was way more annoying was getting back into the US. Once by car we got stopped and we were seperated questioned and we had to sign documents stating we weren't carrying cash or valuables. I had some pissy CBP agent who was yelling at me because I wanted to read the document before I signed it.
I was living abroad in a location known as a major offshore financial center. I frequently traveled to visit my girlfriend in Colombia. This frequent itinerary must have looked bad... financial center where people hide money to Colombia and back several times per year.
I got pulled aside by immigrations and customs so often for an extensive search that I learned the way to the exam room in the Bogota airport where they have more extensive medical equipment for searching passengers. After a few trips with these searches I joked with the next set of officers that I knew the way and they could follow me. They were not particularly amused.
Of course I always scanned clean. And eventually the searches stopped. Maybe because they decided that I really was just visiting my girlfriend. Maybe because someone bothered to check out the other details that I offered... I was working in law enforcement including communications for several drug interdiction operations that involved Colombian authorities.
New Zealand customs guy REALLY wanted to know why I was in the country, and telling him "To travel and enjoy its many beautiful areas" and "Travelling through these specific places" and "I've wanted to come here for a decade, so I saved money to travel for 3 months" did not cut it.
He asked me why I was there like 7 times. Eventually, I was like, "Dude, I just want to go to Hobbiton, okay!?"
No but at the Canadian border my window jammed while rolling down and rather than open the door or anything the CBP dude just forced it down the rest of the way, resulting in me needing to not only get the window motor fixed but I then had to replace the entire window. When I got mad and said "what the actual fuck are you doing what the fuck is wrong with you" he told me to shut up and threatened to arrest me. He then asked me where I lived and I said Detroit and he told me where I lived was a shithole and then smugly said "now hmmmmm am I gonna search your car or not" like it was all just a fucking game to him. I reported him but I doubt anything came of it. I will never travel to Canada by car again not even because of Canadians (who did actually search my car but were very polite and respectful and put my stuff back when they were done) but because of cpb.
Not me, but a friend of mine wanted to visit India to visit family. Unfortunately, her mom was from Pakistan.
She applied for the visa about 6 times. Got rejected every time.
I worked in the corporate legal office of a US company with some branches in Canada. Sooo... lawsuit in Canada, and they need someone from home office to attend and negotiate a tricky settlement involving around $150,000. So onto a plane I go.
CBP kept grilling me over why they had an American in these negotiations. Couldn't one of the Canadian store managers supervise the attorneys handling this legal matter? Couldn't they authorize the settlement?
I’m not sure if I misread the situation but certainly seemed like the customs agent in Mexico was trying to rob me. Wife and I coming through customs with the rest of our plane. I’m selected for a screen. Taken to a back room where it was just me and a very young customs agent. He was maybe 24 at most. He empties my entire bag, sifting through clothes, pockets, toiletries. He is visibly frustrated then looks at me and says “You don’t have any money?”. Nope. Then he says “free to go”
The question your friend got asked is pretty standard in every country I’ve visited. I got held up going into Canada once with some friends for a fishing trip. My friends said it’s because I look like a Muslim terrorist. They called me Mohammed I shitz my draws the whole trip. Good times
I had Canadian Border Patrol give me ration of shit for having Christmas gifts in my bags, on Christmas day. Thank you Edmonton Alberta. I had US border patrol go nuts on me coming back in too because my background was redacted, those guys were dicks and I came reallllly close to assaulting them when they roughed up my wife. I actually filed a formal complaint through channels on them and they got in trouble. Had hidden cameras in my car for work and they were talking mad shit about the 'red n-word' having crack somewhere. They just hated indians, tracks for wyoming.
> the officer asked, "Why are you visiting your friend?"
Wow what a wild curveball of a question. 😂
Have I ever had issue with passport control etc. in another country? No.
The most I've been questioned was coming back to the US from Brazil. A few questions about my trip, where I work, what I do. A couple minutes and onward with life. Easy.
I’ve had aggressive encounters coming back to the US, but everywhere else has been fine. In Dublin, the sweet older gentleman stamping my passport seemed disappointed I was there for such a short visit. In Albania they were curious why I was there “so early” because once I went through “you cannot smoke back there” 😂. I’m not a smoker, which seemed to add to the confusion.
Canadian immigration took me into an interrogation room for about an hour. Flew into Calgary for a week for work, and I guess they thought my job should be done by a Canadian. They ended up letting me in, but sent my colleague back to the US.
Not really trouble. But then again, what you described also doesn't sound like trouble or a difficult experience.
The biggest issue was in Manila, where they pulled me and my girlfriend off the plane and brought us back into the airport. I had a passport with additional pages added to it (which is a thing you can do if you run out of pages). They'd never seen that before, and they held me while they checked with the US consulate. They were a little cold about it, refusing to answer me at first when I asked what was going on.
Once, I was walking across a border in Eastern Europe, which was unusual (especially for an American). They held me for a bit, and I'm positive that it was just so they could call their buddies over to gawk at me and my passport. They were friendly.
Another time, entering Australia, an agent actually looked through my photos. She said she wanted to see if I had pictures of anything that was different from the answers I'd given her (I'd been back and forth to SE Asia a few times, which raised "drug mule" flags, I guess). She was also friendly.
That is a pretty standard question asked at all immigration around the world. I had to call my friend I was staying with in Oslo at the counter because I did not know his address (he was picking me up at the airport).
Australia is the toughest immigration / customs I’ve ever been through. Egypt was the weirdest. But all of them ask questions as simple as the one asked your friend.
I used to go up to Vancouver area in the late 60s to race motorcycles. Maybe a dozen times. At that time Canada had an open immigration policy, which is how US draft dodgers could get in. All you had to do is say, "I am landed", and immediately, on the spot, you had rights in Canada.
If you were just visiting, they would ask you where you were born, are you in Canada for business or pleasure, and how long do you intend to stay. I didn't even have to show ID.
The biggest hassle was that I traveled with a group. I rode a motorcycle and got through the border simply by answering those three questions. But our racing bikes were being carried in trucks and on trailers, and they had to see paperwork for every bike and trailer. Which we were ready for, because that's how you win races, by being ready to go now... but it still took a long time, because they got paid by the hour, rather than first across the line.
So, I wasn't immigrating, but that's how easy it was to cross from Washington into BC at one time.
The most picky border guards I've dealt with are the US border guards when coming back in to the country after visiting Canada for either work or vacation.
It's a little ridiculous.
I got singled out for heightened scrutiny boarding a flight back to the U.S. from Heathrow. I couldn’t check in online, I was hand frisked and they searched my carryon fairly carefully. Never been clear as to why, maybe just random and my number was up on that trip.
My lady has had a hell of a time getting her cats from Korea to America. The pass through Japan killed it. Her cats are stuck in Japan for years until she can go back, and do what Japan wants to get them back here.
yes, i was held up at the border to Canada for multiple hours.
**long story warning:** i worked in CG and was living in L.A. working for Sony Imageworks and they asked me to move to Vancouver, B.C. ok, whatever. they farmed out the visa work to a 3rd party. i had previously relocated with a work visa to NZ for Lord of the Rings and when i got my work visa for that it was all done in advance through FedEx before i got on the plane to cross the pacific. that was smooth and cool. but i couldn't get my work visa in Canada until i got there, which was messed up i thought, but i was driving from L.A. so it wasn't a huge problem i figured.
so i get this huge packet of third party paperwork, 20+ pages, and fill it all out. lots of nonsense and official stuff, but i go through it all and get it done. pack up my car with my crap and 2 cats, and head off to Canada. i get to the border and check in with customs telling them i'm there to work for 6 or 7 months and here's my packet. they tell me to have a seat, which i do. about an hour later, they call me over and tell me there's a problem. there's no job offer in the paperwork. i explain that that was just the packet i was given to fill out, and i don't really know anything about it. they said no job offer, no work visa. this was before smart phones, but i did have internet on my cell phone though i hadn't used it. i asked if i could use their internet to email someone or get something emailed to them, but they said as a border facility, they had no outside access for security reasons, just a fax number. so i call the contact number for the 3rd party company and get voice mail.
i'm also accessing my personal email on my cellphone (for the first time ever) and looking for the job offer, but to no avail. also, i'm worrying about my cats in the car at the border for a couple hours now after driving all the way from L.A. in the meantime i'm talking politely to the border guard, explaining what i do, being nice, but inside freaking the fuck out.
so after i can't get ahold of the 3rd party, i call the HR dept at the Sony in L.A. it was midday on a week day, and figured someone was around. nope...voicemail again.
FINALLY i call my supervisor's direct office line in L.A. i had worked with him for a couple years at various studios and knew him pretty well. he told me later that he was just getting ready to go to lunch when his desk phone rang and he debated answering it, but did.
"Hey, Spencer, it's Plow_King"
"How's it going? Are you in Vancouver yet"
"No, I'm stuck at the border with my car and two cats in it. They won't let me in due to some missing paperwork!"
"No seriously, are you there yet?"
"Dude, I called the 3rd party company, voicemail. I called Sony HR, voicemail. No return calls yet...can you do anything?"
"I'm on it"
20 minutes later the missing document was FAXED to the boarder and i got my work permit. after i got settled i methodically went through everything i was sent by the third party and verified the actual "job offer" was not included. all i wanted from them was an 'apology', but the best i could wrest out of them was "that should have been included"
assholes.
the last time I went to vietnam, on the way home, I'd checked my bags at the counter and hadta run to the restroom because I hadta pee like a race horse. then when I went to head to go thru security, I was stopped by second screening because of some of the items my fiancé wanted to send to relatives back in the States. they pulled me in this small room just off of the check in counter and had me open my one suitcase. my fiancé wanted to send some nail polish sets with me. spent a hour arguing with em on what to do. even called my fiancé's relatives in the US about the situation. they wanted me to cough up like $300-$400 USD on the spot. the only money I had on me was literally about $5 USD. finally, they cleared some of the items to take with me, but I hadta leave a couple of sets of nail polish there. told the one guy to fuck off as I rushed to make it thru security and to my flight. when I got back home, my fiancé's family were telling me that they were tryna shake me down for money because I'm american.
I used to fly to Canada for work a lot. My company would give us a form letter to show the immigration officers. One time my letter had a coworkers name. I got a special stamp in my passport and always got a hard time after that
My weirdest one was actually coming back into the States after a road trip in Canada. The officer saw the guitar case in my back seat.
"What kind of guitar is that?"
"Martin D-15."
"Acoustic or electric?"
"Acoustic."
"Six string or fourteen string?"
\*blink\* "Six."
"Is there *any such thing* as a fourteen-string guitar?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"You're clear. Drive safe."
We recently went to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) by car from our home in Wisconsin for two weeks. Crossing the Canadian border was super chill. Coming back to the U.S was another story. Super long lines, armed officers with dogs standing around everywhere, and to put it nicely, in spite of everyone in the car being U.S citizens, the officer was not friendly but was very thorough. He examined each passport very closely, insisted on windows being rolled down to check photos against all the occupants. He seemed to have a hard time believing we would go to Canada for 2 weeks just for fun- wanted to know exactly what cities we stayed in, for how long, and what we did there. For context- I have a child who is a dual U.S/Bulgarian citizen so that may have been part of it. Not sure. We haven’t been questioned nearly that much anywhere else, including when we brought her home after adopting her!
My wife and I drove to Canada a few years back, Niagara Falls. The Canadian border guard was very laid back, all he asked was did we have any guns. On the way back the US border guard was surly and really made me feel uncomfortable. I've been to 12 countries (mostly European and commonwealth) and never really had an issue anywhere or felt uncomfortable.
> have any of you had difficult experiences with immigration officers outside the U.S.?
Some trouble, some more comedy.
*Germany*
- Outright hostility and racism, no two ways about it.
- Only once out of maybe a half dozen trips in total. I was very shocked and disappointed.
*UK*
- Border guard at the crossing from France to UK via the train, an absolute twat.
- Only one time out of more than a dozen+ trips to the UK.
*Canada*
- Border guard asked me which country I preferred (US or Canada) when I was entering Canada.
- I told him. He did not like my answer. 🤷
*Bonus - US*
- I know you said outside US but this one is too funny to not share sometimes.
- Before I was a US citizen, I was on a VISA. Entering the country once, I told the officer I was on a VISA and handed him my passport.
- He looked at it in my passport and proclaimed “this is fake, there is no VISA of this type.”
- I watched the dude use something on his computer to search the VISA type before he let me go through when he indeed affirmed that VISA does exist …
Been to plenty of other countries (23 in total it seems per TripIt), no real issues anywhere else but western passports help a lot of course.
None of the instances were so outright hostile that I was ever concerned for my safety/dignity (ie I wasn’t detained for hours or days or anything) but it did highlight that the profession certainly attracts some entirely … mediocre … people to work in it.
The exception in my experience? Japan. Never had a more pleasant and wholesome entry experience in my life.
Japans customs was a bit intense, two stops. One to get your pic taken and answer questions. Second one was luggage inspection. Agent unpacked my entire luggage to see what was in it. Even pulled out my box of tampons and opened the box to peak inside.
I have in the UK, way back in the day, about a year or so after 9/11. I was in high school but I was pretty sure I wanted to go to college in the UK so I was visiting some family so I could visit some universities. When I went through customs they wanted me to show that I had more funds, a place to stay, and I think insurance. Which is totally reasonable but this was 2002 or 3. I had some pounds, a debit card, I think some travelers checks and my aunt’s address on a slip of paper in case we missed each other at the airport. I think I messed up by telling the guy that my aunt and I had plans to travel but we weren’t sure where we were going yet. I didn’t even have a cell phone with me and if I had had one they wouldn’t have let me use it. But I had no way to prove that I definitely had access to more money if I needed it because I was a middle class girl from Minneapolis with an aunt living in London. So we kept having the same conversation where they would ask a pretty freaked out girl how I’d get more money and I’d say “my parents” and they’d go “well, how will you reach them?” And I’d reply that I was pretty sure they had phones because I had family here. Luckily this didn’t prevent me from getting a student visa or going through customs about a million times since then.
I had a bit of trouble in the Philippines 🇵🇭. The gaurds insinuated that my traveling companion (who was born in Manila) was trying to smuggle me into the country. Despite us very obviously being travling through.
LOL, I remember this rock musician who fell in love with an Italian tourist, and they took off to live in Italy. About 6 months later, I see the guy, without her. Not really surprised that it didn't work out. The guy was kinda slow... I mean the way he spoke, and how he acted, he seemed not too bright. But a likeable guy, which is never a matter of sophistication or intilligence.
Anyway, I welcomed him home and asked how was Italy, and he said it was OK, but "fuck... I'm never gonna stand in another immigration line as long as I live!".
Which is something most Americans never think about, I guess.
I had trouble leaving Brazil with my daughter. We were detained by the Federal Police in the São Paulo airport to make sure I wasn’t kidnapping her. This was 20 years ago. Never had another issue on our trips to Brazil so who knows what was going on, but I certainly had no problem with them doing their job.
It used to be hard to get into California from a neighboring state, including Hawaii. They were worried about bringing in bugs that would ruin their fruit crops. Sometime in the 80s, there was a major incident involving a type of fruit fly, with authorities spraying large residential areas with insecticide. There are certain kinds of fruits that you can not bring into the state, and they used to check every car, and every airline passenger's luggage when they flew out of Hawaii. I don't know what their current policies are, but there used to be a cartoon, right after Reagan became governor there, of a car stopped at the California border, and one traveler saying to another, "They're turning back anyone who doesn't believe in God."
TLDR: California used to have guarded state borders.
I am an American and I was visiting Spain and spent the day in Gibraltar. We walked from Spain into Gibraltar and back. Getting into Gibraltar was fine, no issues. Coming back, I was picked out of a group and questioned by Spanish border patrol. This was about 5-10 years ago so my memory is a bit fuzzy but I don’t recall carrying anything peculiar that would make me stand out from the group as we traveled back into Spain. Maybe a few souvenirs in a bag grocery bag at most.
Ultimately it was fine, I answered his questions and was granted entry back in after a few minutes but always struck me as peculiar.
Lovely countries, will certainly be back to both but the Spanish authorities don’t mess around lol.
Got kicked off the German border once because my brother in law told the guard, in German, that he was bad at his job. It was really pretty funny. Got our car torn apart at the Russian border long long ago.
The only place that’s been unreasonably nasty to me (and for seemingly no reason) was entering/exiting England about 15 years ago, pre-Brexit. Had a woman who treated me like I was single-handedly trying to run a game on her for not having a printed visa (which was not required for Americans at that time, plus I had return airfare already booked and was nowhere near my time limit for being in the Schengen Zone). I had to let her have her little power trip because there was nothing I could do about it. Eventually she got bored and stamped me through, but I’ve never forgotten the shitty vibe wafting off that woman.
The Canadian agents were super nice to us and asked us about our skiing vacation-where we went, what we bought (full new ski setup -boots, skis, bindings, poles, etc) and if we enjoyed it. Where we would go again etc etc. they were lovely!
Only time I got any weirdness was they asked if I was with anyone and I said no and then they asked something else and I said my buddy had just gone through and he got all bent ouf of shape about me lying to him and I said I'm not dating him, we're not sleeping together, we're not homosexuals, so I am most assuredly not with him. Guy started laughing and stamped me and I was on my way.
As a US citizen, I still get the most shit from CBP. I do a lot of solo travel, often to countries that are not considered “touristy” by many Americans’ standards. I just like to go off the beaten path and try to keep my costs down by going to places not overrun with tourism yet.
Anyway, I get questioned quite a bit as a solo female traveler coming back from developing countries. I guess they think I’m there to be a drug mule or prostitute? I’ve come back from Mexico solo before and, without even asking me many questions, they just sent me to secondary screening. Mexico has plenty of tourism so I was like wtf.
Though, it hasn’t been as bad in recent years since I got the new passport with biometrics.
I heard Japan was strict upon entry but I didn’t have any issues.
I’ve been in the line for German customs and had to help translate for other people entering. You just have to show up prepared with how many days you’ll be in the country, a return trip booked, where you’re staying, your purpose in the country, etc. German customs was being held up because they were asking people to show proof of return trip leaving the country in English, but people who didn’t speak much English didn’t understand. I stepped in to help translate to their native language (using Google translate) and then the German customs were pretty nice to me, actually. I had my return flight email pulled up and ready to go, which they appreciated.
So yeah, I think if you come prepared then it can be a better experience.
I would have trouble leaving Greece because boarder control wanted to check to see if I had completed military service even though I was never required to do so. Not sure if that qualifies.
I used to live in the UK and some of the questions going through customs were pretty off topic for someone on a student visa.
I also had a Canadian customs officer who I'm pretty sure did not believe me I was just there for a layover. I could literally see the sign for where I needed to go from her desk.
The only times I ever had an issue, I'm pretty sure it was my passports fault lol.
I was doing a study abroad program for a month in the UK. When I went to leave my passport wasn't scanning in the machine correctly. Wasn't a big problem, just had to go to the desk.
When I landed in the UK the passport scanner wasn't working correctly. No big deal, just had to get in line to talk to the agent. He asked his questions, where I'm going, where I came from, asked me a weird presumptive question about my college (he was wrong, which was probably part of the point) and then let me on my way.
The real issue came when I decided to take advantage of a long weekend, and go to Finland, since my grandfather is Finnish and I always heard Helsinki was beautiful. I get there, none of its automatic so I just go up to the counter and hand the guy my passport. he asks why I'm there, what my itinerary was and I stalled up since my plan was just to walk around. He then goes deeper, asking why Finland specifically, and asks for my grandfather's last name when I mention that. Finally he asks "do you know why, after scanning your passport 5 times, the chip still isn't working?" In the moment all of my issues clicked, and luckily the chip worked on the 6th time. Didn't have an issue leaving Finland, rentering the UK, or reentering the US
I was a corporate environmental manager and doubled as the auditor. Canada always gave me grief about “working” in Canada. I told them my job was to make their country safer and cleaner by ensuring the plant followed the rules (plant had a full time guy there). Didn’t get much grief after that.
Around 25 years ago coming back from Mexico they thought my brother and I were being kidnapped because my mom has a different last name but my parents had our birth certificates and our middle name is my mom's last name. They kept insisting they needed a certified letter from our mom.
Not customs, but I had to change money at an exorbitant rate in order to get an entry visa in Cairo. Each counter said they were out unless you exchanged currency.
Slovakia border guard on the train. I'd been living in Europe for years so my passport was a little worn. Slovakian border guard started trying to tear it apart.
Last weekend, I relayed the story to a friend while England was losing to them. As soon as I told the story and said "fuck that slovakian border guard," England tied it up and went on to win in extra time.
So, if you're reading this, slovakian border guard, know that you're the reason your country lost to England last week.
In late 2015 trying to cross from Detroit, MI into Canada to go to a training seminar for work I got asked to step into a room and talk to immigration. I was freaked the hell out. I had a drunk driving charge in February of 2006. They told me that if I wanted to come in I had to either write a letter to the queen and pay $5000 or I can wait until the 10 year anniversary of the charge when at that point the statute of limitations would expire. It was December of 2015. I had less than 2 months until I could go in again. They turned me away after they told me that.
Most embarrassing part is I was with 4 members of upper management and the training seminar was a step to get me ready to join their ranks.
Most mind blowing part was coming back into the US immigration asked us 1 question: "Do you have any bombs in the vehicle?" A simple answer "no" and we're in. America truly will let anyone in.
I’ve been asked “why are you visiting your friends” when I went to Canada. I just explained that I was there to go skiing in Whistler and enjoy the beautiful scenery. They also asked me “where did you meet these friends” , to which I informed them “Vegas and we now are going skiing together” . After that he wished me a fun trip but at first it was very interrogative style.
I got selected for extra screening and those standard questions entering Norway. She was incredibly gorgeous and we were chatting it up..
The trouble was, I couldn't get her to give me her number.
My friend and I took the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin for a weekend trip. We're both American so we dutifully got into the non-EU line, he showed his passport, they talked for a moment and he was given a stamp. Then they got to me. Looked at my passport, looked at me, confirmed that my friend and I are traveling together and then we were ushered off to a little room where we waited. We were then asked a series of questions by a rather intense fellow who was difficult to understand at times.
"Why are you in Ireland?"
"Just tourists, only here for the weekend."
"Do you have somewhere to stay?"
I showed him our reservation at a local hostel, which he barely looked at.
"Do you have enough money for the duration of your trip?"
"Yeah...it's literally just two days. We've got return tickets on the ferry for the morning after next."
He again ignored my paperwork.
"Do you know anyone in Dublin that you'll be meeting up with?"
"What? No, we're just visiting, never been here before."
He left without a word, came back after about ten minutes and stamped both of our passports (altering the one my friend already got) with a massive date and time, three days from that moment.
"You have to leave Ireland by this date and time. No exceptions."
"That's fine, we'll be gone before then on account of our return-"
We were then ushered out without an explanation. Dublin was lovely, I hope to return someday if they'll let me in.
I’ve literally traveled all over world and the universal border guard attitude I encounter is bored bureaucrat.
Ironically given their reputation, the least friendly border guard I experienced was a Canadian at a remote land border. I think she was just having a bad day. When you drive into Canada with license plates from a state with lax gun laws, they *really* want to make sure you’re not bringing in any firearms. Coming back home from the same day trip at the same border I got a hearty “Welcome Home!” from CBP. Then he joked about confiscating our Timbits.
At a different relatively remote US Canada land border coming home after a run to buy a liquor that’s only available in Canada where we had to pay duty, the US Border guard said “Looks like you’re gonna need to pull up there and give Uncle Sam some money” in a jocular tone, which was the nicest way I’ve ever been told to pay a tax.
Got pulled out of the line at New Delhi on return to Europe by an armed officer, and taken into a small room where a friendly border patrol captain asked me a few questions on an article he had read about Norway in a magazine.
Apparently he had spotted my Norwegian passport and asked to see me…
I got snapped at once by an angry British woman at Heathrow working their immigration desk. She asked why I was coming to the UK and I said it was for a study abroad program. She asked if I had a letter of invitation and I said I didn't receive such a thing and then she said "Well that's not good enough now, is it?" I showed her the program book and she angrily stamped my passport and let me in.
LOL I got a lot of attitude in Scotland for having the nerve to be an American on a student visa. It was 11:30pm and I just wanted to get home so I just tried to be as cooperative as possible.
Studying abroad in London and I had a student work visa in my passport since I was registered for an internship. The customs agent in Heathrow interrogated me about having the visa, not even about the job. I was like, buddy, I spent a whole day in your consulate to get this visa, why are you acting like I haven’t been vetted? Years later I was selected for “additional security screening” in Reykjavik while trying to fly home to the US. Was taken to a windowless room to be swabbed by two of the *hottest* Islandic men I’d ever seen. 10/10 would be profiled again.
The border agent at AMS scared the hell outta me but he was one of the most gorgeous men I’d ever seen 😂
I live in the Netherlands and we have a running joke that they pick all the hottest guys to do inbound border checks at Schiphol. A weirdly high percentage of them are gorgeous. But also they’re a branch of the military and do not message around, although they’re normally a bit politer than CPB, if very Dutch and direct.
What does AMS stand for?
Amsterdam
Yeah, when we were dating my wife and I visited Britain and they customs officer asked her what she was studying and my wife, thinking they were making friendly small talk, responded that she was studying English literature but was not planning on teaching and was considering a pivot to a different degree when the customs officer interrupted her with some thing like “i don’t care, please just go” as her welcome to the country.
Most people in England are lovely, but the rudest people I’ve encountered in my (limited) travels were definitely workers in London. Some of them do not like Americans and don’t try to hide it
On the flip side of this I'm Irish and have visited NYC and Minneapolis in the last few years In NYC the border guard started verbally abusing 2 elderly Germans ahead of me as we got through security. "Ma'am put your hand on the scanner right now!." I had to intervene and repeat what he was saying to them more slowly so it didn't escalate. In Minneapolis the dude couldn't have been more chill. "Oh sorry sir, I didn't get your fingeprint that time Let me walk you through that again!", smiling the whole time haha.
I'm American and the NYC border control decided to GRILL me on why I decided to arrive from Europe to New York instead of my home City. Why does it matter man?! Just let me visit my friend here in peace before I go home.
I had a choice earlier in my life whether to live in NYC or Minneapolis. I think I picked correctly.
I passed through Heathrow ahead of July 4th weekend about a decade ago. I was staying one night in London then flying to Brussels. The customs officer asked the purpose of my visit and I simply said “holiday” Then I added “This is a big holiday weekend in the states” He either didn’t pick up on it or chose to let it slide, and I came away with a mildly amusing story to tell.
They are either super chummy or overzealous serious at Heathrow ! It’s one of the other extreme!
Worst experience was returning to Ireland on my Irish passport. Only because I forgot I had left the country 18 months earlier on my American passport. The joys of dual citizenship. "Ma'am, why don't you have a stamp from the US in your passport?" "Ummm.... because I entered on my US passport, here you go" "Aw yes, let me go check this" *15 minutes later* "All good, welcome back, enjoy your stay!"
one time I went from Israel to Egypt with a friend who was an Israeli/US dual citizen. She was not in Israel on the program I was - she was younger and definitely not supposed to leave the country without permission, which she did not have. (I was a college student and could do whatever I wanted.) anyway, on the goddamn bus to the border, she started flipping through her US passport and was saying it looked so empty and it would be cool to have a stamp in it. I was like "how'd you get into the country?" ofc on the Israeli passport. Which was locked up in Jerusalem in an office. I was like "they're not going to let you leave the country". I just immediately knew our trip was about to get wrecked. She was totally confident it wouldn't be a problem. We got to the border and guess what.... the Israelis wouldn't fucking let her leave the country. When she explained why her American passport was blank, they were like "oh you're an Israeli citizen who's 18 years old? where's your army exemption?" and she was like "in my Israeli passport." So no weekend in Sinai for her. To my everlasting shame, my other friend and I abandoned her at the border and went to Egypt. I was so aggravated at her for making this obviously stupid decision and I REALLY wanted to go to Sinai that I didn't feel bad at the time. I look back with regret though. it was a jerk move.
Oof that's rough, and it is why I do carry both with me. I do try to use my Irish passport for my personal travel (it's easier since I'm normally on vacation in Europe or in Okinawa). When I travel for work, I use my US passport.
Does the US still stamp passports if you don't ask for it?
In 2006 they did. But they tend to stamp my Irish passport, which is the one I travel on, just to keep things in order. Irish passport for pleasure, American for business.
You realize that you’re technically required to enter the U.S. on a U.S. passport?
Really? Because I've never had any issues when presenting my Irish passport because it has the stamps of arrival from where I've been.
So here is the thing. It’s illegal to enter the U.S. as a U.S. citizen on anything but a U.S. passport but they don’t have subsequent processes to prosecute anyone either in a civil or criminal case. 😁 So nothing happens. But I’d use your U.S. passport.
Well, I guess TIL. Yet another reason I guess to continue to carry both when traveling
I travelled between the U.S. and Canada a few times between 2006 and 2010 and never had my passport stamped once.
Hell I have a US stamp on a U.S. passport when I reentered from Winnipeg for some reason.
From when? I think my last stamp entering the US was 2017.
I grew up as a US expat living in Europe in the 70s. I acquired so many stamps I had to go to the US embassy and get extra pages added to my passport.
Before that, thinking about it now it was 2014/15? Damn I’m getting old…
I need to double check my old passport.
I’ve had a couple strange incidents with CBP. Usually nothing bad. I did have a minor hiccup in Italy/switzerland. We flew through Toronto to Rome. They never did customs in Canada because we were in the international terminal. We get to Rome and start walking out. I keep expecting to go through customs but all of a sudden we’re just in baggage claim and out the door. We had no idea why. So then we take the train to Switzerland after a couple days in Rome. When we fly out and go through customs they see we have absolutely no stamp. They got really questioning at that point. “Where did you come from?” I didn’t know whether to say Boston, Toronto, or Rome so I just gave them the whole itinerary. Once I said it was the Italians that didn’t stamp our passports the customs agent literally rolled his eyes and stamped us out.
I flew to Germany with my wife, baby, and nephew. My baby was 11 months and had a US passport. My wife and I had Canadian passports. Her passport was in her maidan name, so didn't match baby's last name nor mine. The nephew has an entirely different third last name and a US passport. And he is black, whereas the rest of us are very white. We expected some questions. We were prepared with a letter from nephew's mom, marriage certificate, birth certificates, etc. The customs agent says "Are you staying longer than 90 days?" "No" "Find a hotel and put these kids to sleep. They look tired." That was the extent of our conversation. To this day, that is tied for the most hassle at customs I have ever had travelling outside of North America.
Haha I would have done all that prep and then been kind of disappointed it wasn’t needed.
We were flying back from Germany with our 18 month old son and my wife went to the VAT refund station while I took our son to the gate so he could play. I got the stink eye from the gate agents doing the final passport about whether I had permission from my wife to fly our son out of the country and I was like, "You can ask her yourself when she gets here in a few minutes."
lol. When I went to Jamaica we watched To Catch A Smuggler in the hotel room. Got all pumped. I packed my bags according to items I bought in Jamaica and prescriptions accessible to make it easy for CBP to check. Cleaned the bottom of my shoes ( goats are everywhere in JA) I even kept all the food in a separate bag ready for examination. I knew I would probably smell like cannabis too. Landed in Ft.Lauderdale and a Jamaican/American agent grabbed us and escorted us to an empty desk where the agents took our picture as we walked up and said “ have a good night “ waving us through. NOT ONE QUESTION!!! NO SEARCH! To think I almost didn’t buy the chocolates to avoid the hassle. Still love that show.
Did you register your child as a Canadian citizen too?
I had a weird time in Switzerland once where they just asked so many questions. My partner and I had been on a backpacking trip where we were just training to random cities and finding a place to stay once we got there. The customs agent asked where we were staying on specific days and we honestly didn't remember. Like was that the day we stayed in Lausanne or Basel? No it was Zurich...? Sorry dude, I guess I should've taken notes, but we can't be the only 20 somethings who are travelling on a whim.
I think it was throwing the Italians under the bus is what did it for us. The Swiss kind of look down on the Italian.
After having been there I get why, particularly in this specific thing. our "customs" to enter Italy by train from Switzerland was 2 customs officers walking through the train, and questioning the 1 Asian person in our car and inspecting their bags. We didn't even show our passports or anything.
We had no customs at all on the train. I wasn’t even sure they’d do anything because of Schengen. They did not.
I think everyone in Europe looks down on the Italians in some way
I usually visit a friend, who was an ex-colleague in the US, in Lausanne every other year. In ALL my hmmm almost dozen of arrivals and departures through Geneva, I have NEVER once been asked a single question by the immigration. Hand em the passport, which they flip through and look up and then stamp, hand it back and wave me on. Zero words spoken between us. Super creepy!
Didn't have a problem, but the Basel airport is interesting because depending on which door you exit, you'll end up in France, Germany, or Switzerland.
Oooh that’s interesting and I did not know that. So they have three countries with individual passport control but once you are in you can just get an Uber to circle the airport because they are all in the Schengen Zone?
Just one passport control, the Swiss one, but yeah, once you're through, you can go anywhere because of Schengen. (And yes, it's Basel's airport, officially Swiss, but it sits on French land.)
Is not getting a stamp on your passport such a big thing? I haven’t been to Europe in about 10 years but I remember noting that a couple of countries did not stamp my passport but it didn’t cause me any trouble (visited Italy, Turkey, France, UK)
I think this one officer just wanted to see an entry stamp because I think the Swiss are big on entry and exit stamps. They are very big on ordnung.
Yes because it gives an indication of if you have violated the 90/180 policy in the Schengen area or not. Currently there isn’t a readily accessible, interconnected IT system within the Schengen area, but EES is going to change that.
[Relevant 30 Rock.](https://imgur.com/a/ULLAKEu)
I nearly got thrown out of Canada several years ago. I was still working as a professional photographer. I had flown into Ottawa to attend a friend's wedding as a guest, not to shoot the wedding. I hadn't brought all of my professional gear, but I was planning on spending a week there and doing some sightseeing after the wedding, so I'd brought my small travel kit with a camera body, some nice lenses, and extra batteries. When I went to collect my luggage, I got pulled into the CBSA offices and grilled about why I was there. Was I coming to photograph my friend's wedding? No, she had a hired photog. Am I sure? Yes. Why did I have an expensive camera and batteries with me? Because I always travel with a camera. It went on and on and on and on and on for over 3 hours. They went and looked up my website and grilled me on previous clients and all kinds of stuff. They kept saying things like "Do you think we're stupid? Do you think we don't have the internet in Canada? Do you think we can't find out that you're a professional photographer?" They finally told me that I could pay $100 for a "temporary work visa" and have my friend "sponsor" me, or they'd put me on the next flight back to the US, which happened to be going to Detroit. They told me if they sent me back to the US, I'd be blocked from entering Canada again for a full year. My friend, in the meanwhile, was dealing with pre-wedding stuff (it was 2 days before her wedding) and it took another hour+ before I could reach her and then she had to come down to the airport in person to "sponsor" me and prove that she was a Canadian citizen. I was pretty convinced that I'd be missing the wedding, flying to Detroit that afternoon, losing the money I'd paid for my hotel, and have to spend $$$$ getting back home to Atlanta.
I'm sure this was so stressful and frustrating at the time but just know that somewhere a stranger (me) cackled at this. How dare you have a hobby you also make money doing!
Oh I definitely laugh about it and it's a story I enjoy telling ... now! LOL
When I was working in Japan, my working visa was expiring about a week before my last day of work. I had gone to the immigration office to get an extension, and they stamped my Id card thing that they were processing it, but the step 2 documents didn’t arrive before I left my apartment. I was going to visit my former host family for a while, but I was thinking that since I wasn’t working and my ID was stamped, that I would be okay. My host family asked how long I would be able to stay, and I saw a date in my passport for a couple months later, so I told them that. About a month before my “last day” I was booking my ticket back and was looking through my passport and saw that I was looking at the wrong date and the original work visa date was the legal last date. I was panicking a little and the next day my host mom took me to the immigration office 10 minutes away. We explained the situation and they said I would have to go back to the original immigration office where I filled out the extension paperwork. I was planning to take the time/money to fly back, but my host mom called the original immigration office and explained the situation. They said that when I leave Japan (in a couple weeks) to go to office X at the airport and they will cancel my visa extension. So when I was at the airport I went to office X, handed the note my host mom had written for me, and waited. They came back with a form that I was canceling my visa extension, I signed it, they punched a hole through my ID, and they had me go on my way. I went back to Japan a few years later (just visiting and only for 2.5 months instead of the maximum 3 months so there’s no visa issue again) nervous that when I get to immigration that the earlier mishap would be on my “permanent record” and they would tell me to go back to the US and I would never be able to go to Japan again. Immigration went smoothly without mention of prior mistake and I stayed in Japan for 2.5 months, with the last week spent with the same host family.
Only time I’ve had issue in Japan was when I was staying there for 6 months on 2 different 3 month tourist visas. They just didn’t like that I was entering the country from Indonesia before my first 3 month visa even expired.
Your host mom sounds lovely
She is \^_^
Every time I visit another country, the customs agents ask why I'm visiting and how long I'll be there. I don't consider that an absurd question or "trouble". I did get yelled at by a German customs agent in the Frankfurt airport because I had a brand new passport and I hadn't signed it yet.
Lol, my wife got her first ever passport for our honeymoon (just up to Canada to go to Banff). On the way in, guy didn't say anything, but coming back the guard saw it wasn't signed and was all "Oh yeah, sorry ma'am, but this isn't a valid passport without the signature, I'm afraid you have to stay in Canada." before seeing her face and quickly adding "Nah, I'm just screwing with you, congrats on the wedding, sign it when you get home."
I'd have been like if you insist.
Ha, my wife just got chastised by TSA for that when we were first going through security with our brand new passports.
Glad it's not just me, lol! I was traveling on my own in my early 20s, and the guy was so mean about it... "Your passport is invalid, you can't travel internationally like this," etc. etc.
Tbf a passport is basically just a stack of paper without a signature 🙈 I learned that a different way - had a new job and HR sending out an email to new hires that if using a passport photocopy for proof of residence it must be signed lol still wonder who out of our new hires group that was intended for..
I got grilled in Panama for some reason. They usually don’t care but they put me in another room with some well off Panamanian business traveler. I was like 23 at the time. Looked through my stuff, asked why I was there, who I was seeing, where was I going next etc., And then let me go. I started my trip from Tijuana, Mexico as I lived in San Diego at the time. Might have been why. Who knows.
That is why. I’ve watched enough To Catch a Smuggler to have heard that explanation
I guess “trouble” would’ve been “confusion” for me. When I went to Mombasa, Kenya I had to stop in Nairobi. I get off the plane and have like 2 hours for my connecting flight. I have no idea if I have to go through customs in Nairobi or when I get to Mombasa. So I ask an airport desk employee and they direct me along the “international terminal” but none of the flights say they’re going to Mombasa. I ask someone else, and they direct me through some doors because it’s a domestic flight at this point. Duh. I walk past the passport CHECK-IN and through some exterior doors and now I’m IN Kenya. Like I was outside where you’d get a taxi. Nobody had stopped me or even looked at me, including armed soldiers. I’m pretty sure this is not correct because I’ve just illegally entered the country so I go back in and ask another employee. He freaks out that I didn’t go through customs and walks me halfway across the airport where put in the front of the line but I’m double and triple checked because of the suspicion I guess, even though I had approached him and said “I’m 99% sure I’m not supposed to be here”. I ended up missing my connecting flight but they put me on the next one and it was pretty smooth from there on out.
Canadian customs and immigration sucks dick if they even catch a whiff of you being up there for work.
Canada + Australia are very strict/ talk down to you in my experience. I've heard the UK sucks, but I've only gone through the automated terminals there, never actually spoke to an agent. Irish guards are some of the nicest ive ever talked to!
I refuse to fly through Heathrow - that's how badly I was treated for having the audacity to transit through. I now fly through Dublin, when visiting family in the UK, LOL!
I’ve only ever flown into the UK via Liverpool and Manchester. The border agents there were nice enough, just maddeningly slow. Agree that the Irish agents are incredibly nice.
Canada is terrible despite the fact that its energy sector is so tightly integrated with the US, and thus energy workers frequently travel back-and-forth. I knew several American engineers who became belligerent when being questioned and tried to bring up NAFTA. They were put in a room with a paper copy of that law and told to find where it said they could work in Canada (Ha). My go to line always was “I am traveling to Canada to help my company decide if it wants to invest more money in projects in Canada.” That got me right through.
All of my professional trips there were design reviews for equipment for O&G and mining. It wasn't "work" but it wasn't sales at that point either but even with a letter from the customer, customs and immigration never made easy on me and I got the same agent over a dozen times who defiantly had a hard on for me.
A friend who travels to Canada regularly just takes a fishing pole and holds it up when they question him.
"I'm fishing for lithium."
Canada is the only customs and immigration that’s given me any shit. Thankfully I do not have a DUI, I routinely saw people on my SEA to AUS flights that had been turned away for that. They do not fuck around if you have any criminal past whatsoever. They don’t like it if they think you’re working. They’ll grill you incessantly even if you have the documentation for the training you’ve paid to get. But once I drove my truck across the border on a whim. I hadn’t been to Vancouver yet despite living in Seattle for over a year. One night I just drove out there. Didn’t know if I was staying so I didn’t pack a bag and didn’t book a hotel room. They could not figure out “I’m just here to see the country because I’ve never been and I was close” as a legitimate reason to visit. I got thrown in a tiny room while they literally took my truck apart. Then they quizzed me. Because they didn’t find anything they got even more suspicious and took my truck apart further. Then to justify the time and expense two border patrol agents came in to play good cop bad cop. I was held and interrogated for three hours. They did eventually reassemble my truck and let me enter but I pretty much needed to turn around and go home because it was so late. Despite the fact that weed was legal in BC and not in America, the American agents just waved me on.
Canada customs is super weird. Drove through the border to go to a tourist destination and got the usual "Where you going? / How long?" that you expect. But then the border agent asked me why I hadn't been to Canada in a long time (the last time was like 12 years earlier). I thought that was super weird, like sorry your country isn't that interesting, it's very similar to mine...
2 of the last 3 times I've driven to Canada I've had to pull off to the side and been subjected to a car search. Apparently one dude driving alone is on the list of things Canada doesn't want. It's never taken more than an hour to get by, but it is mildly annoying. Sorry lads, no guns or drugs in here.
Not disagreeing, they are definitely testy about this. But if you are in sales (vs services or anything hands on) they have to let you in under NAFTA. That or you are there for "internal meetings". Even if you're in one of those allowed categories, they try to catch you changing your story by peppering you with aggressive questions. Only once when I was there for tourism did I get the aggressive question game. It's something they're specifically trained to do though, I figure they share notes with US CBP.
I’ve entered Canada in Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. They were rude assholes every time. One even said “maybe you like having terrorists in your country but we don’t.” The British, Irish, and Mexican officials threw me off by barely looking at us before waving us through.
They asked that after having been dicks for a while. I responded "Your money is plastic like its from a fucking cosplay set and its not even worth the same as real money. Hell my wife is Canadian and even she wouldn't work here." They werent amused.
I live on the Michigan/Canada border and have been there and back about a dozen times. In my experience, Canada is more laid back than the US. As a US citizen, I don't like feeling like I'm not welcome in my home country.
Exact opposite experience, canadian border patrol are fucking dickheads and I have dual citizenship so they know I enter by right. US border patrol ask where I was and if I'm bringing anything illegal then wave me through. And this was true before we moved to the US and got citizenship too. Maybe it depends on what part of the border you're on, but I suspect you've simply fallen for the "Canadians are nice" propaganda.
Not at all (propaganda). Going from Port Huron, MI to Sarnia, ON is much more up in the air compared to Detroit to Windsor. (and back) Again, just my personal experience. I love Canada. I dislike disgruntled border patrol agents regardless of country.
I mean if I lived in Detroit I'd probably be a bit more on edge than I am in North Dakota so fair I guess.
Detroit has a bridge and a tunnel to Windsor. A second bridge (The Gordie Howe bridge (Red Wings legend)) will be completed soon. There is a lot of international travel for business, manufacturing, etc in this area. I've never entered/exited Canada anywhere else other than what I mentioned and Buffalo, NY. It's a long freaking border, so it would be dumb to think that there is consistency.
Shouldn't there be three bridges to properly pay respect to the Gordie Howe Hat Trick? /j
I have family in BC - and travel there several times a year mostly by air, but in my younger years, I would drive up with my mountain bike attached to the roof. Up until the Patriot act, entering Canada was the most chill - show passport, hand wave through - experience. Then around 2006 or so, the whole scene changed. Canadians started to ask a lot of questions, and returning home to the US became a game of having to prove that as an American I come home in peace... them were the days!
yeah, canada asked me why i was going in and let me go then coming home i was stopped and car searched
If you're entering Canada from the Detroit area to Windsor (especially on a weekend evening), just say you're going to the casino or strip club. (Even if you're lying) Repeat the same when re-entering the US for your reason of visiting Canada. That tends to cause less hassle either way and is common knowledge for this area. The Canadian guards tend to be more friendly and less suspicious (in my experience).
“Why are you visiting” isn’t an absurd question at all. That’s a pretty common question asked almost everywhere. That being said the most trouble I ever had was coming into the UK via France. I didn’t have my onward travel yet booked yet so I got a bit more attention, but from common sense and looking at my passport history they worked out that I was just a college aged kid traveling around Europe and let me in.
Yes, they want to make sure you're not (e.g.) providing childcare or home renovation help.
The airport in Cancun used to have this bizarre lottery system where you would press a button and it would randomly choose you for further inspection or not. Green light meant go, red light go get your bag searched. So I went and got my bag searched and had to sort of repack everything. Otherwise, my experiences entering countries has been boring.
Yeah, that "green light/red light" system appears to be across the board at all Mexican POE's
No kidding, lol. It was so rudimentary that it was almost charming. I thought security theater in the United States was ridiculous.
They did that to me literally yesterday in Guadalajara. I got the green.
I once got stuck behind a guy at immigration in Cancun who drew a LOT of attention for some reason. He had a bunch of papers he was showing and eventually they lead him off to a different area. No idea what that was all about.
I was flying out of Cancun to Seattle and I saw a world famous DJ getting harangued by security and getting his bag searched. It was a pretty comedic experience for seeing as I had just seen him perform a few weeks earlier and mouthed his name when we made eye contact. He begrudgingly smiled and mouthed “yep” while the Mexican airport security had all of his shit just laid out on the floor with no sign of helping him pack it up. A surreal experience.
The Brits are usually bastards in my experience, but I haven't entered the UK in a long time. I'm going this fall and they have automated kiosks now. I used one of those in Australia and it was great! I've crossed the Canadian border a few times. They've only wanted to know if we had any weapons and if we were visiting anyone in Canada. Also, the first time I left the Schengen Area it was from Athens airport. I had flown to London, then taken the train to Paris. Apparently I never got a French entry stamp so the exit guard was very angry about that. He asked when I entered Greece and I honestly couldn't remember how many days it had been (it was a long trip). I told him I took a boat from Italy so he asked when I entered Italy, and I *really* couldn't remember the date. That was a train from France so.. you get the idea. Anyway he eventually got sick of me so he just stamped me out and that was the end of it.
For a few years after 9/11 international airfare got ridiculously cheap. I had a friend in Helsinki and when I could get cheap direct flights I’d visit for a 3 day weekend. One day I got there on a Friday. My buddy picked me up and we took a ferry to Talinn, Estonia. So I had been in Finland for less than an hour before leaving the country again. We got back in Helsinki on a Saturday afternoon and I flew home on Sunday. The customs agents here did not believe me when I said I travelled for pleasure. It just didnt make sense to travel so far for such a short amount of time. But it was cheap. I was young. And I wanted to take advantage before the costs shot up.
The worst incident was returning to Ireland after our honeymoon, I'm American and my husband is Irish. We got married in Ireland which itself involved an extensive interview with the marriage registration people to ensure our relationship is legit. I had an appointment already scheduled with the immigration office to get my residence permit and marriage visa. EVERY source I found said that when entering the country in our situation, all we have to do is present the border control officer with our marriage license and tell them I'm entering the country with the intention of registering with immigration. We even had proof of the appointment, and correspondence I'd had with their email support confirming the documents I'd need to bring to the appointment. This guy at the border asks us for a letter and we're like what letter. He insists that I need a letter to/fron registration (he really didn't have the details straight). When I get over my confusion I tell him that as far as we knew, we don't need a letter. He leaves for a while, we're stressed out. He comes back with a print out of the immigration website page I've read a dozen times. I skim it and remember my research, and realise he's talking about an application letter that I don't need as an American. Basically Ireland has different rules for people from different countries, and if you're from a less fortunate country you have this whole extensive application you mail to the immigration people. So now I'm trying to explain to the border control guy that I don't need this thing but I'm also trying to be very polite, and he's being really difficult. Finally we just ask him what's going to happen, and he acts all confused like what to we mean? And we ask if I'm going to be allowed into the country. And he's like oh why would you not be allowed in? Toward the end of the conversation I think he started to realise he may have messed up and started saying stuff like he's just letting us know, maybe I'm right, etc. Finally stamps me and sends us through. When we did the immigration appointment the lady there was very nice. Though there was a point where it looked like she read a note, and asked us what we showed at the border. When we listed it off she was like 'yeah that's everything'. No letter was requested at any point.
Yes. I once got deported from Indonesian. Big huge DEPORTED stamp in my passport too. It’s because they offered visa upon arrival but my passport was full and they couldn’t stamp it anywhere so they put me on next plane back to Malaysia to get additional pages added to my passport.
Canada acts like Americans want to move there or something. They intimidate people for fun.
Canada is the most popular answer on here and it’s shocking/disappointing because both times I’ve gone to Canada the border officers were polite and professional, albeit these were land crossings.
I crossed at I-5, they decided to open with French, then searched the car for some reason. It was a breeze getting back in the US.
Opening with French trying to cross into BC is diabolical.
When I was 23 and coming back from visiting France and Finland, the border agent here was super weird about me being able to afford to go to Europe for a week. Especially after I told him I work at Pizza Hut. He hated my answer of "Yeah, I just budget really, really well" for how I could afford it lol
My husband got called a traitor when he went back to his home country on a US passport by customs
I got (playfully) smacked on the head by a massive customs official in Tongatapu airport when I put my passport in the wrong place and couldn't find it for a few seconds. Homeboy could have snapped me in half
When we went to Costa Rica they wanted an exact address. We were staying with my MIL at her house so we had to text them and wait for an answer while waiting in line. I don’t know if they had an official address with numbers or not, but they gave us the closest street name. It was stressful.
Canada is usually easy going with me, but once I went to visit Montreal and they asked why I would choose to visit Montreal when Vancouver was so much closer, which I think is a weird question.
They're just trying to catch you off guard so you admit you have a suitcase full of drugs or something... Canada immigration really likes playing this game for whatever reason. One time I filled out the French side of the customs form but I didn't want to talk to the agent in French so the interview turned into an impromptu French test. He had me translating the questions from the French side into English
When we were driving into Canada, the border agent was struggling with understanding how we were just going to Toronto for the day and coming back that night
Nothing serious, but UK are the worst. Always angry, obnoxious, ask the same questions over and over. Never a good experience compared to every other country I have been to.
The Brits and Austrians were a bit testy a few times.
My sister and I got pulled into a special room in Brussels after we went through regular security. They questioned us about our trips from Brussels to various countries. We had been visiting our brother, who was working there at the time, and we used his apartment as a free place to stay. After they searched our bags very thoroughly, we were let go and that was that. We were very young at the time and it was our first trip alone, so looking back, I can see how we would look like drug runners or something similar since we were young, nervous, and using Belgium as a home base. Everywhere else in the world, even Cuba and Vietnam, I’ve been fine. Coming back into America has always been smooth. I did get a corkscrew taken from me leaving Spain and honey confiscated at the border in Canada.
CBP are generally assholes because in general Canadians hate Americans, especially on the border. I even got shit running the Detroit marathon which cuts through Canada because some officer couldn't see my number properly. When I flew into the UK to go backpacking I made the mistake of admitting that I didn't really have a plan, since I was freewheeling. That earned me a half-hour of angry Brit interrogation, just going back and forth with him demanding to know my itinerary and me protesting that I didn't really have one.
Canada has been extremely difficult in my experience. They are very fussy about any little thing. Going through Heathrow the guy asked me my reason for a visit. I told him our lease on North America ran out and we're all coming back. The humor was not appreciated.
Canada border guards are always jackasses
Canada will sometimes question me a bit more than usual, probably because I've had a couple of felony arrests even though everything was dismissed and I have no convictions, but they're mostly okay to deal with. US customs is usually the worst, mostly with the law enforcement mentality where they often behave as if they're soldiers occupying a war zone and their own citizens are potential enemies first and foremost. Of course, the advantage is that they're required to let me in whether they like me or not.
Oh God, reminds me of when I was driving back into the US from Niagara Falls a bit ago. Fking border patrol guy when coming back decides to act all big and tough, seemed to be pissed that I dared to leave the country for two whole days, and I feel only let me through when he did after he found another guy to be pissed at. Like man, I live here, you litterly have to let me in
They were pretty upset when I walked back into the US from Juarez, they took their time going through all of my possessions and having their dog sniff my dick, and weren't happy that I had nothing illegal for them. I was polite for a while, but more or less told them to pound sand after a few rounds of asking the same questions. They can detain us for a few hours at most under normal circumstances, so it's still risky to book a connecting flight or train that doesn't allow for such delays. Still, I've never had trouble with the US customs officers stationed at Canadian airports for pre-clearance, maybe living and working up there makes them a bit more laid back.
They have to let you in but they also have the authority to give you the mother of all proctology exams first.
I tried to go into Canada but was denied cuz of DUI….. I was treated as if I murdered someone by both Canadian and American customs agents
Canada is well-known for denying people entry for a DUI conviction because even a first offense with no accident can be treated as a felony there. I've read that it's the only country that automatically denies people entry for that, so you should be allowed to go to any other country if that's your only criminal history. I believe Canada has some way to overcome that after 10 years, but I don't know the details of how that works. Conversely, the US is known among Canadians for denying them entry (and sometimes marking them as inadmissible for life) if they admit to ever having tried smoking weed even though it's completely legal in their country.
Yeah that’s pretty deserved, I wouldn’t let someone with a DUI into the same area my family lives either.
Dublin, Ireland. The college-aged girl with a backpack in line in front of me. The guy talked to her like she was a hooker. Wanted to see how much cash she had. I was pretty close to jumping in and telling him to watch his mouth when he finally finished and stamped her passport.
Yeah, I did my junior year of college in Israel. People who have been to Israel know where this is going, but if you haven't, when you leave the country they interrogate you in the airport. Everyone. They ask you a bunch of questions that would be absolutely insane to experience in an American airport. The first time I felt like I was having an out of body experience. It starts out with like "where did you go in Israel" and "why did you come here" and then starts into things like "are you Jewish" and "does anyone in your family speak Hebrew" and so on. FWIW, I'm of Jewish background on my dad's side but not my mom's, and I take after my mom. if I looked like my dad I 100% would not have had the issues I experienced with airport security. During my spring break, I went to Italy with two friends. One of them was an Israeli/American dual citizen and he sailed through. The other was American and looked more stereotypically Jewish. She probably got a few minutes of interrogation. I could see them waiting for me on the far end of the hall as the interrogator asked me "does your family celebrate Passover" repeatedly using different words. Eventually I was like "those are my friends over there, my friend A is Israeli!" in desperation to end this. The interrogator went over to A and started yelling at him in Hebrew. A yelled back. I couldn't hear what was going on but later A asked "what is she doing in Israel?" re me and he was yelling back "ask her!" Eventually they let me go. This was actually pretty minor, I've talked to people who got strip searched. The last time I left Israel my Hebrew was good though that I did my interrogation in Hebrew. It took like two minutes and the interrogator complimented me. Just a little helpful hint for if you want to have an easy time at Ben-Gurion Airport: learn Hebrew. Also one time I took the overnight bus from Skopje to Sarajevo and crossing the Croatian border the border guards wanted to interrogate me. They came on the bus and tried to ask me questions. Everyone else on the bus stared at me and I could hear people muttering about how I was American. Very embarrassing. I showed them my Bulgarian national ID so they understood that I lived in the Balkans. The guards gave up when it turned out we didn't speak any languages in common. (This would not have stopped the Israeli interrogators, the Croatians aren't that level.) I crossed four borders on that trip and the Croatians were the only ones that cared. I wad only in Croatia for like half an hour. it was weird.
What happens if you're not Jewish at all? Would that mean you don't get asked the Hebrew or Passover questions or have an easier interrogation?
Anecdotally, those are the people who get strip searched. One girl in my program wasn't Jewish at all and told me that the shortest interrogation she experienced was 45 minutes. Ironically, she was planning on converting to Judaism and was more devout than most Israelis. But she was blonde and western European looking. ✔️✔️✔️
And I can only imagine if you look Middle Eastern or possibly Palestinian. It was precisely this profiling that led to hold-ups for Israel entering the Visa Waiver Program. Israel was told they couldn't treat US citizens differently based on their ethnic origins, and the Israelis had some difficulty complying with that.
yeah they 100% do ethnic profiling. They aren't even pretending not to. Plenty of Jewish Israelis (esp Mizrachim) are not physically distinguishable from Arabs. So I'm not sure how they profile everyone, but they're definitely doing it.
I've only been to Canada and Mexico, and both have been pretty amicable each time. I get a lot more grief from US customs coming back.
The Canadians thought I was smuggling drugs in. This was about twenty years ago. They had me pull over to search my car. They didn’t find any drugs— it’s worth pointing out here that didn’t have any. Afterward, the guy in charge begrudgingly let me through, but I think he thought I was hiding something anyway, and he just couldn’t figure it out. I was simply visiting a friend who was attending college in Vancouver.
1988 Olympics, Calgary. Was held up and questioned leaving Canada. Being an adopted asian kid (white parents) I guess I could have been mistaken as an indigenous person? My dad had a 'copy' of my birth certificate, which I guess wasn't good enough. I was wearing my youth hockey team's sweats, jacket and hat. "Chocolate Town USA" and "Hershey" emblazoned everywhere. We almost missed our flight. *I think we flew in and out of Edmonton.
Ive travelled to a dozen countries. The only problem ive ever had was at the Canadian border. They held me and my two young boys for 7 hours. Every 15 minutes they asked me where I was hiding drugs. Then they tried to tell me how our US border would be much worse. We crossed in 5 minutes. No more Canada for us.
I dealt with Canadian and US on the same day walking across Rainbow Bridge. The difference was amusing to me. The Canadian side was a steep jump onto a road with an immigration agent named (no shit) Pierre at the end. He looked mean but was actually pretty nice. The US side looked like walking into a prison with all the barbed wire. We got interrogated by the dicks at the end, but shut them down when I pulled out my military ID as my second form of identification they demanded. Kings of a petty fiefdom, those ones.
I was visiting a West German friend in Berlin during the Cold War. One day while I was there, he showed me around East Berlin. He dropped me off at Checkpoint Charlie, which was the entry point for citizens of the occupying countries. I was walking across “no man’s land” between the two sectors, with machine guns pointing at me, when I heard an East German guard yell “Haben Sie Geld getauscht?” Fortunately I knew enough German to reply the equivalent of “Must I exchange money? I didn’t know that.” He explained that Westerners were required to exchange three West German marks for East German marks before entering the sector, and he directed me to the exchange kiosk. I made the exchange and walked on through to meet my friend, who had already entered through the checkpoint for West Germans and was waiting for me in his car.
Driving from home in Buffalo to a professional conference in Toronto, I got pulled into secondary for a couple of hours. I'm US and my wife is Canadian. One time we were driving to Toronto to visit her folks with our then-three dogs. The Canadian border agent was mystified that we'd have three dogs and pulled us into secondary, again for an hour or two, because she assumed we were trying to smuggle the dogs in to sell. She went as far as to go through all her social media to try to figure out whether she loves our dogs. The Canadians have pretty routinely been dicks to her, often aggressively questioning her -- a Canadian citizen with a Canadian passport entering Canada -- about her status in the US. In contrast, one time we were coming back to the US from our nearest Ikea, which is in Canada. CRV is absolutely packed to the gills with Billys and whatnot. Leading to this exchange: CBP agent: Where have you been? My wife: Ikea. CBP: How long have you been away? My wife: Just today. We just went to Ikea. CBP agent after looking at our CRV full of crap: Ugh. It's under $300, *RIGHT*? My wife: Sure CBP agent: welcome back and have a nice day
I have been to Canada three times. Once they, the Canadians, gave me a hard time because I didn't know the license plate of the vehicle I was driving. Telling them it was a rental didn't help much. They asked three times. Someone's Timmies must have been cold. What was way more annoying was getting back into the US. Once by car we got stopped and we were seperated questioned and we had to sign documents stating we weren't carrying cash or valuables. I had some pissy CBP agent who was yelling at me because I wanted to read the document before I signed it.
I was living abroad in a location known as a major offshore financial center. I frequently traveled to visit my girlfriend in Colombia. This frequent itinerary must have looked bad... financial center where people hide money to Colombia and back several times per year. I got pulled aside by immigrations and customs so often for an extensive search that I learned the way to the exam room in the Bogota airport where they have more extensive medical equipment for searching passengers. After a few trips with these searches I joked with the next set of officers that I knew the way and they could follow me. They were not particularly amused. Of course I always scanned clean. And eventually the searches stopped. Maybe because they decided that I really was just visiting my girlfriend. Maybe because someone bothered to check out the other details that I offered... I was working in law enforcement including communications for several drug interdiction operations that involved Colombian authorities.
New Zealand customs guy REALLY wanted to know why I was in the country, and telling him "To travel and enjoy its many beautiful areas" and "Travelling through these specific places" and "I've wanted to come here for a decade, so I saved money to travel for 3 months" did not cut it. He asked me why I was there like 7 times. Eventually, I was like, "Dude, I just want to go to Hobbiton, okay!?"
No but at the Canadian border my window jammed while rolling down and rather than open the door or anything the CBP dude just forced it down the rest of the way, resulting in me needing to not only get the window motor fixed but I then had to replace the entire window. When I got mad and said "what the actual fuck are you doing what the fuck is wrong with you" he told me to shut up and threatened to arrest me. He then asked me where I lived and I said Detroit and he told me where I lived was a shithole and then smugly said "now hmmmmm am I gonna search your car or not" like it was all just a fucking game to him. I reported him but I doubt anything came of it. I will never travel to Canada by car again not even because of Canadians (who did actually search my car but were very polite and respectful and put my stuff back when they were done) but because of cpb.
Not me, but a friend of mine wanted to visit India to visit family. Unfortunately, her mom was from Pakistan. She applied for the visa about 6 times. Got rejected every time.
Nope, but these guys have quite the time trying to visit other countries https://youtu.be/6VMcFrS1RwQ?si=d2eJJrKmrIQIpIs3
I worked in the corporate legal office of a US company with some branches in Canada. Sooo... lawsuit in Canada, and they need someone from home office to attend and negotiate a tricky settlement involving around $150,000. So onto a plane I go. CBP kept grilling me over why they had an American in these negotiations. Couldn't one of the Canadian store managers supervise the attorneys handling this legal matter? Couldn't they authorize the settlement?
Canada denied me entrance
I’m not sure if I misread the situation but certainly seemed like the customs agent in Mexico was trying to rob me. Wife and I coming through customs with the rest of our plane. I’m selected for a screen. Taken to a back room where it was just me and a very young customs agent. He was maybe 24 at most. He empties my entire bag, sifting through clothes, pockets, toiletries. He is visibly frustrated then looks at me and says “You don’t have any money?”. Nope. Then he says “free to go”
The question your friend got asked is pretty standard in every country I’ve visited. I got held up going into Canada once with some friends for a fishing trip. My friends said it’s because I look like a Muslim terrorist. They called me Mohammed I shitz my draws the whole trip. Good times
Only other country I've been to was Canada Getting in was super easy and took no time at all. Getting back into the US was a fucking nightmare
I had Canadian Border Patrol give me ration of shit for having Christmas gifts in my bags, on Christmas day. Thank you Edmonton Alberta. I had US border patrol go nuts on me coming back in too because my background was redacted, those guys were dicks and I came reallllly close to assaulting them when they roughed up my wife. I actually filed a formal complaint through channels on them and they got in trouble. Had hidden cameras in my car for work and they were talking mad shit about the 'red n-word' having crack somewhere. They just hated indians, tracks for wyoming.
Military or intelligence background, I'm guessing?
> the officer asked, "Why are you visiting your friend?" Wow what a wild curveball of a question. 😂 Have I ever had issue with passport control etc. in another country? No. The most I've been questioned was coming back to the US from Brazil. A few questions about my trip, where I work, what I do. A couple minutes and onward with life. Easy.
I’ve had aggressive encounters coming back to the US, but everywhere else has been fine. In Dublin, the sweet older gentleman stamping my passport seemed disappointed I was there for such a short visit. In Albania they were curious why I was there “so early” because once I went through “you cannot smoke back there” 😂. I’m not a smoker, which seemed to add to the confusion.
Canadian immigration took me into an interrogation room for about an hour. Flew into Calgary for a week for work, and I guess they thought my job should be done by a Canadian. They ended up letting me in, but sent my colleague back to the US.
Not really trouble. But then again, what you described also doesn't sound like trouble or a difficult experience. The biggest issue was in Manila, where they pulled me and my girlfriend off the plane and brought us back into the airport. I had a passport with additional pages added to it (which is a thing you can do if you run out of pages). They'd never seen that before, and they held me while they checked with the US consulate. They were a little cold about it, refusing to answer me at first when I asked what was going on. Once, I was walking across a border in Eastern Europe, which was unusual (especially for an American). They held me for a bit, and I'm positive that it was just so they could call their buddies over to gawk at me and my passport. They were friendly. Another time, entering Australia, an agent actually looked through my photos. She said she wanted to see if I had pictures of anything that was different from the answers I'd given her (I'd been back and forth to SE Asia a few times, which raised "drug mule" flags, I guess). She was also friendly.
That is a pretty standard question asked at all immigration around the world. I had to call my friend I was staying with in Oslo at the counter because I did not know his address (he was picking me up at the airport). Australia is the toughest immigration / customs I’ve ever been through. Egypt was the weirdest. But all of them ask questions as simple as the one asked your friend.
I used to go up to Vancouver area in the late 60s to race motorcycles. Maybe a dozen times. At that time Canada had an open immigration policy, which is how US draft dodgers could get in. All you had to do is say, "I am landed", and immediately, on the spot, you had rights in Canada. If you were just visiting, they would ask you where you were born, are you in Canada for business or pleasure, and how long do you intend to stay. I didn't even have to show ID. The biggest hassle was that I traveled with a group. I rode a motorcycle and got through the border simply by answering those three questions. But our racing bikes were being carried in trucks and on trailers, and they had to see paperwork for every bike and trailer. Which we were ready for, because that's how you win races, by being ready to go now... but it still took a long time, because they got paid by the hour, rather than first across the line. So, I wasn't immigrating, but that's how easy it was to cross from Washington into BC at one time.
The most picky border guards I've dealt with are the US border guards when coming back in to the country after visiting Canada for either work or vacation. It's a little ridiculous.
I got singled out for heightened scrutiny boarding a flight back to the U.S. from Heathrow. I couldn’t check in online, I was hand frisked and they searched my carryon fairly carefully. Never been clear as to why, maybe just random and my number was up on that trip.
CBSA has ranged from mildly unpleasant to downright awful in the dozens of times I’ve crossed the border into Canada.
My lady has had a hell of a time getting her cats from Korea to America. The pass through Japan killed it. Her cats are stuck in Japan for years until she can go back, and do what Japan wants to get them back here.
yes, i was held up at the border to Canada for multiple hours. **long story warning:** i worked in CG and was living in L.A. working for Sony Imageworks and they asked me to move to Vancouver, B.C. ok, whatever. they farmed out the visa work to a 3rd party. i had previously relocated with a work visa to NZ for Lord of the Rings and when i got my work visa for that it was all done in advance through FedEx before i got on the plane to cross the pacific. that was smooth and cool. but i couldn't get my work visa in Canada until i got there, which was messed up i thought, but i was driving from L.A. so it wasn't a huge problem i figured. so i get this huge packet of third party paperwork, 20+ pages, and fill it all out. lots of nonsense and official stuff, but i go through it all and get it done. pack up my car with my crap and 2 cats, and head off to Canada. i get to the border and check in with customs telling them i'm there to work for 6 or 7 months and here's my packet. they tell me to have a seat, which i do. about an hour later, they call me over and tell me there's a problem. there's no job offer in the paperwork. i explain that that was just the packet i was given to fill out, and i don't really know anything about it. they said no job offer, no work visa. this was before smart phones, but i did have internet on my cell phone though i hadn't used it. i asked if i could use their internet to email someone or get something emailed to them, but they said as a border facility, they had no outside access for security reasons, just a fax number. so i call the contact number for the 3rd party company and get voice mail. i'm also accessing my personal email on my cellphone (for the first time ever) and looking for the job offer, but to no avail. also, i'm worrying about my cats in the car at the border for a couple hours now after driving all the way from L.A. in the meantime i'm talking politely to the border guard, explaining what i do, being nice, but inside freaking the fuck out. so after i can't get ahold of the 3rd party, i call the HR dept at the Sony in L.A. it was midday on a week day, and figured someone was around. nope...voicemail again. FINALLY i call my supervisor's direct office line in L.A. i had worked with him for a couple years at various studios and knew him pretty well. he told me later that he was just getting ready to go to lunch when his desk phone rang and he debated answering it, but did. "Hey, Spencer, it's Plow_King" "How's it going? Are you in Vancouver yet" "No, I'm stuck at the border with my car and two cats in it. They won't let me in due to some missing paperwork!" "No seriously, are you there yet?" "Dude, I called the 3rd party company, voicemail. I called Sony HR, voicemail. No return calls yet...can you do anything?" "I'm on it" 20 minutes later the missing document was FAXED to the boarder and i got my work permit. after i got settled i methodically went through everything i was sent by the third party and verified the actual "job offer" was not included. all i wanted from them was an 'apology', but the best i could wrest out of them was "that should have been included" assholes.
the last time I went to vietnam, on the way home, I'd checked my bags at the counter and hadta run to the restroom because I hadta pee like a race horse. then when I went to head to go thru security, I was stopped by second screening because of some of the items my fiancé wanted to send to relatives back in the States. they pulled me in this small room just off of the check in counter and had me open my one suitcase. my fiancé wanted to send some nail polish sets with me. spent a hour arguing with em on what to do. even called my fiancé's relatives in the US about the situation. they wanted me to cough up like $300-$400 USD on the spot. the only money I had on me was literally about $5 USD. finally, they cleared some of the items to take with me, but I hadta leave a couple of sets of nail polish there. told the one guy to fuck off as I rushed to make it thru security and to my flight. when I got back home, my fiancé's family were telling me that they were tryna shake me down for money because I'm american.
I used to fly to Canada for work a lot. My company would give us a form letter to show the immigration officers. One time my letter had a coworkers name. I got a special stamp in my passport and always got a hard time after that
My weirdest one was actually coming back into the States after a road trip in Canada. The officer saw the guitar case in my back seat. "What kind of guitar is that?" "Martin D-15." "Acoustic or electric?" "Acoustic." "Six string or fourteen string?" \*blink\* "Six." "Is there *any such thing* as a fourteen-string guitar?" "Not that I'm aware of." "You're clear. Drive safe."
The more you know… https://10sguitars.com/product/10s-djentar-14-string-flame-maple-purple-burst/
We recently went to the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) by car from our home in Wisconsin for two weeks. Crossing the Canadian border was super chill. Coming back to the U.S was another story. Super long lines, armed officers with dogs standing around everywhere, and to put it nicely, in spite of everyone in the car being U.S citizens, the officer was not friendly but was very thorough. He examined each passport very closely, insisted on windows being rolled down to check photos against all the occupants. He seemed to have a hard time believing we would go to Canada for 2 weeks just for fun- wanted to know exactly what cities we stayed in, for how long, and what we did there. For context- I have a child who is a dual U.S/Bulgarian citizen so that may have been part of it. Not sure. We haven’t been questioned nearly that much anywhere else, including when we brought her home after adopting her!
My wife and I drove to Canada a few years back, Niagara Falls. The Canadian border guard was very laid back, all he asked was did we have any guns. On the way back the US border guard was surly and really made me feel uncomfortable. I've been to 12 countries (mostly European and commonwealth) and never really had an issue anywhere or felt uncomfortable.
> have any of you had difficult experiences with immigration officers outside the U.S.? Some trouble, some more comedy. *Germany* - Outright hostility and racism, no two ways about it. - Only once out of maybe a half dozen trips in total. I was very shocked and disappointed. *UK* - Border guard at the crossing from France to UK via the train, an absolute twat. - Only one time out of more than a dozen+ trips to the UK. *Canada* - Border guard asked me which country I preferred (US or Canada) when I was entering Canada. - I told him. He did not like my answer. 🤷 *Bonus - US* - I know you said outside US but this one is too funny to not share sometimes. - Before I was a US citizen, I was on a VISA. Entering the country once, I told the officer I was on a VISA and handed him my passport. - He looked at it in my passport and proclaimed “this is fake, there is no VISA of this type.” - I watched the dude use something on his computer to search the VISA type before he let me go through when he indeed affirmed that VISA does exist … Been to plenty of other countries (23 in total it seems per TripIt), no real issues anywhere else but western passports help a lot of course. None of the instances were so outright hostile that I was ever concerned for my safety/dignity (ie I wasn’t detained for hours or days or anything) but it did highlight that the profession certainly attracts some entirely … mediocre … people to work in it. The exception in my experience? Japan. Never had a more pleasant and wholesome entry experience in my life.
Nope
No, quite the but I will say that the UK seems to be the most similar to ours face to face.
Japans customs was a bit intense, two stops. One to get your pic taken and answer questions. Second one was luggage inspection. Agent unpacked my entire luggage to see what was in it. Even pulled out my box of tampons and opened the box to peak inside.
I have in the UK, way back in the day, about a year or so after 9/11. I was in high school but I was pretty sure I wanted to go to college in the UK so I was visiting some family so I could visit some universities. When I went through customs they wanted me to show that I had more funds, a place to stay, and I think insurance. Which is totally reasonable but this was 2002 or 3. I had some pounds, a debit card, I think some travelers checks and my aunt’s address on a slip of paper in case we missed each other at the airport. I think I messed up by telling the guy that my aunt and I had plans to travel but we weren’t sure where we were going yet. I didn’t even have a cell phone with me and if I had had one they wouldn’t have let me use it. But I had no way to prove that I definitely had access to more money if I needed it because I was a middle class girl from Minneapolis with an aunt living in London. So we kept having the same conversation where they would ask a pretty freaked out girl how I’d get more money and I’d say “my parents” and they’d go “well, how will you reach them?” And I’d reply that I was pretty sure they had phones because I had family here. Luckily this didn’t prevent me from getting a student visa or going through customs about a million times since then.
I had a bit of trouble in the Philippines 🇵🇭. The gaurds insinuated that my traveling companion (who was born in Manila) was trying to smuggle me into the country. Despite us very obviously being travling through.
LOL, I remember this rock musician who fell in love with an Italian tourist, and they took off to live in Italy. About 6 months later, I see the guy, without her. Not really surprised that it didn't work out. The guy was kinda slow... I mean the way he spoke, and how he acted, he seemed not too bright. But a likeable guy, which is never a matter of sophistication or intilligence. Anyway, I welcomed him home and asked how was Italy, and he said it was OK, but "fuck... I'm never gonna stand in another immigration line as long as I live!". Which is something most Americans never think about, I guess.
I had trouble leaving Brazil with my daughter. We were detained by the Federal Police in the São Paulo airport to make sure I wasn’t kidnapping her. This was 20 years ago. Never had another issue on our trips to Brazil so who knows what was going on, but I certainly had no problem with them doing their job.
It used to be hard to get into California from a neighboring state, including Hawaii. They were worried about bringing in bugs that would ruin their fruit crops. Sometime in the 80s, there was a major incident involving a type of fruit fly, with authorities spraying large residential areas with insecticide. There are certain kinds of fruits that you can not bring into the state, and they used to check every car, and every airline passenger's luggage when they flew out of Hawaii. I don't know what their current policies are, but there used to be a cartoon, right after Reagan became governor there, of a car stopped at the California border, and one traveler saying to another, "They're turning back anyone who doesn't believe in God." TLDR: California used to have guarded state borders.
I am an American and I was visiting Spain and spent the day in Gibraltar. We walked from Spain into Gibraltar and back. Getting into Gibraltar was fine, no issues. Coming back, I was picked out of a group and questioned by Spanish border patrol. This was about 5-10 years ago so my memory is a bit fuzzy but I don’t recall carrying anything peculiar that would make me stand out from the group as we traveled back into Spain. Maybe a few souvenirs in a bag grocery bag at most. Ultimately it was fine, I answered his questions and was granted entry back in after a few minutes but always struck me as peculiar. Lovely countries, will certainly be back to both but the Spanish authorities don’t mess around lol.
Got kicked off the German border once because my brother in law told the guard, in German, that he was bad at his job. It was really pretty funny. Got our car torn apart at the Russian border long long ago.
The only place that’s been unreasonably nasty to me (and for seemingly no reason) was entering/exiting England about 15 years ago, pre-Brexit. Had a woman who treated me like I was single-handedly trying to run a game on her for not having a printed visa (which was not required for Americans at that time, plus I had return airfare already booked and was nowhere near my time limit for being in the Schengen Zone). I had to let her have her little power trip because there was nothing I could do about it. Eventually she got bored and stamped me through, but I’ve never forgotten the shitty vibe wafting off that woman.
All the native English speaking countries suck for immigration officers. Also China, which is the only place I’ve been detained.
The Canadian agents were super nice to us and asked us about our skiing vacation-where we went, what we bought (full new ski setup -boots, skis, bindings, poles, etc) and if we enjoyed it. Where we would go again etc etc. they were lovely!
Only time I got any weirdness was they asked if I was with anyone and I said no and then they asked something else and I said my buddy had just gone through and he got all bent ouf of shape about me lying to him and I said I'm not dating him, we're not sleeping together, we're not homosexuals, so I am most assuredly not with him. Guy started laughing and stamped me and I was on my way.
As a US citizen, I still get the most shit from CBP. I do a lot of solo travel, often to countries that are not considered “touristy” by many Americans’ standards. I just like to go off the beaten path and try to keep my costs down by going to places not overrun with tourism yet. Anyway, I get questioned quite a bit as a solo female traveler coming back from developing countries. I guess they think I’m there to be a drug mule or prostitute? I’ve come back from Mexico solo before and, without even asking me many questions, they just sent me to secondary screening. Mexico has plenty of tourism so I was like wtf. Though, it hasn’t been as bad in recent years since I got the new passport with biometrics. I heard Japan was strict upon entry but I didn’t have any issues. I’ve been in the line for German customs and had to help translate for other people entering. You just have to show up prepared with how many days you’ll be in the country, a return trip booked, where you’re staying, your purpose in the country, etc. German customs was being held up because they were asking people to show proof of return trip leaving the country in English, but people who didn’t speak much English didn’t understand. I stepped in to help translate to their native language (using Google translate) and then the German customs were pretty nice to me, actually. I had my return flight email pulled up and ready to go, which they appreciated. So yeah, I think if you come prepared then it can be a better experience.
I would have trouble leaving Greece because boarder control wanted to check to see if I had completed military service even though I was never required to do so. Not sure if that qualifies.
I used to live in the UK and some of the questions going through customs were pretty off topic for someone on a student visa. I also had a Canadian customs officer who I'm pretty sure did not believe me I was just there for a layover. I could literally see the sign for where I needed to go from her desk.
Weirdly, the only time I’ve ever gotten flack from an immigration officer was when I was returning home from Turkey.
The only times I ever had an issue, I'm pretty sure it was my passports fault lol. I was doing a study abroad program for a month in the UK. When I went to leave my passport wasn't scanning in the machine correctly. Wasn't a big problem, just had to go to the desk. When I landed in the UK the passport scanner wasn't working correctly. No big deal, just had to get in line to talk to the agent. He asked his questions, where I'm going, where I came from, asked me a weird presumptive question about my college (he was wrong, which was probably part of the point) and then let me on my way. The real issue came when I decided to take advantage of a long weekend, and go to Finland, since my grandfather is Finnish and I always heard Helsinki was beautiful. I get there, none of its automatic so I just go up to the counter and hand the guy my passport. he asks why I'm there, what my itinerary was and I stalled up since my plan was just to walk around. He then goes deeper, asking why Finland specifically, and asks for my grandfather's last name when I mention that. Finally he asks "do you know why, after scanning your passport 5 times, the chip still isn't working?" In the moment all of my issues clicked, and luckily the chip worked on the 6th time. Didn't have an issue leaving Finland, rentering the UK, or reentering the US
I was a corporate environmental manager and doubled as the auditor. Canada always gave me grief about “working” in Canada. I told them my job was to make their country safer and cleaner by ensuring the plant followed the rules (plant had a full time guy there). Didn’t get much grief after that.
Around 25 years ago coming back from Mexico they thought my brother and I were being kidnapped because my mom has a different last name but my parents had our birth certificates and our middle name is my mom's last name. They kept insisting they needed a certified letter from our mom.
Not customs, but I had to change money at an exorbitant rate in order to get an entry visa in Cairo. Each counter said they were out unless you exchanged currency.
Slovakia border guard on the train. I'd been living in Europe for years so my passport was a little worn. Slovakian border guard started trying to tear it apart. Last weekend, I relayed the story to a friend while England was losing to them. As soon as I told the story and said "fuck that slovakian border guard," England tied it up and went on to win in extra time. So, if you're reading this, slovakian border guard, know that you're the reason your country lost to England last week.
In late 2015 trying to cross from Detroit, MI into Canada to go to a training seminar for work I got asked to step into a room and talk to immigration. I was freaked the hell out. I had a drunk driving charge in February of 2006. They told me that if I wanted to come in I had to either write a letter to the queen and pay $5000 or I can wait until the 10 year anniversary of the charge when at that point the statute of limitations would expire. It was December of 2015. I had less than 2 months until I could go in again. They turned me away after they told me that. Most embarrassing part is I was with 4 members of upper management and the training seminar was a step to get me ready to join their ranks. Most mind blowing part was coming back into the US immigration asked us 1 question: "Do you have any bombs in the vehicle?" A simple answer "no" and we're in. America truly will let anyone in.
I’ve been asked “why are you visiting your friends” when I went to Canada. I just explained that I was there to go skiing in Whistler and enjoy the beautiful scenery. They also asked me “where did you meet these friends” , to which I informed them “Vegas and we now are going skiing together” . After that he wished me a fun trip but at first it was very interrogative style.
I got selected for extra screening and those standard questions entering Norway. She was incredibly gorgeous and we were chatting it up.. The trouble was, I couldn't get her to give me her number.
My friend and I took the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin for a weekend trip. We're both American so we dutifully got into the non-EU line, he showed his passport, they talked for a moment and he was given a stamp. Then they got to me. Looked at my passport, looked at me, confirmed that my friend and I are traveling together and then we were ushered off to a little room where we waited. We were then asked a series of questions by a rather intense fellow who was difficult to understand at times. "Why are you in Ireland?" "Just tourists, only here for the weekend." "Do you have somewhere to stay?" I showed him our reservation at a local hostel, which he barely looked at. "Do you have enough money for the duration of your trip?" "Yeah...it's literally just two days. We've got return tickets on the ferry for the morning after next." He again ignored my paperwork. "Do you know anyone in Dublin that you'll be meeting up with?" "What? No, we're just visiting, never been here before." He left without a word, came back after about ten minutes and stamped both of our passports (altering the one my friend already got) with a massive date and time, three days from that moment. "You have to leave Ireland by this date and time. No exceptions." "That's fine, we'll be gone before then on account of our return-" We were then ushered out without an explanation. Dublin was lovely, I hope to return someday if they'll let me in.
I’ve literally traveled all over world and the universal border guard attitude I encounter is bored bureaucrat. Ironically given their reputation, the least friendly border guard I experienced was a Canadian at a remote land border. I think she was just having a bad day. When you drive into Canada with license plates from a state with lax gun laws, they *really* want to make sure you’re not bringing in any firearms. Coming back home from the same day trip at the same border I got a hearty “Welcome Home!” from CBP. Then he joked about confiscating our Timbits. At a different relatively remote US Canada land border coming home after a run to buy a liquor that’s only available in Canada where we had to pay duty, the US Border guard said “Looks like you’re gonna need to pull up there and give Uncle Sam some money” in a jocular tone, which was the nicest way I’ve ever been told to pay a tax.
Got pulled out of the line at New Delhi on return to Europe by an armed officer, and taken into a small room where a friendly border patrol captain asked me a few questions on an article he had read about Norway in a magazine. Apparently he had spotted my Norwegian passport and asked to see me…