General Discussion

Once, in the Atlanta airport, the CBP officer, himself an immigrant from the Dutch Caribbean, put her file and passport in a folder and made her (I wouldn't leave her side, so "us" ) come with him to a detention area. We sat there for 45 minutes. His reason was that "her fingerprints didn't match," which was total BS because she was wearing the same fingers on her hands that she had presented the last 40 times she had entered the USA. The officer then didn't return to his post, but headed for some rest/leisure/break area. Coffee break, maybe? We were his excuse, anyway. After 45 minutes, she/we was/were called in front of a three man higher-up panel of CBP officers who asked what the problem was. We explained that their officer had claimed that her fingerprints were different from the last 40 times she had entered the USA. The three hgher-ups look at the folder, handed her back her passport, rolled their eyes, apologized, and said sorry, you are, of course free to go.

Another time, she was with a good friend of her who lives in Montgomery Center, Vermont on the Canadian border. They went over to Canada for lunch, and on the way back, the stupid CBP officer asked when she was leaving back for Germany. She named the date, and he started getting huffy, stating that she was staying one day longer then the 90 limit. She had entered the USA about 5 weeks before, but the stupid CBP guy couldn't find her entry stamp, and could only find the one from a couple of months before, when we were in DC for our nephew's college graduation. Thinking quickly, my wife told the border cop, "oh, you are quite right, sir. I was thinking of the day I arrive back in Germany, but the planes from Boston always leave the night before, so I actually will be departing the day before." Having been given the chance to show his superior authority, the guy was happy to have the chance to order someone around, and let her back in without any further harassment. If he had looked closer at her passport, he would have seen that she had only been in the USA for about 40 days, but he was too lazy to look more closely. I don't think he would have reacted favorably to being shown that she could read the stamps in her passport better than he could, but that was indeed the reason for her being stopped in the first place.

American border cops don't have a monopoly on stupid behavior, of course. Once I was returning to Düsseldorf from Atlanta. A customs officer at the Düsseldorf airport stopped me, and asked in English, "what is the purpose of your visit to Germany?" I said, also in English, "I have a very good purpose. I live here," and pulled out my permanent residence card. The guy haughtily said, "if you live here, you must speak German." I replied, "I do speak German." He switched to German, asking again if I spoke German. Also in German, I replied that of course I spoke German." He then demanded to know why I hadn't spoken German from the beginning. I told him, "YOU were the one who started out speaking English. I don't give German customs officers orders on what language they should be speaking. You started in English, so I answered in English." Not content with looking foolish once, he asked if I was carrying any cash with me. I said, "of course I'm carrying cash with me." I reached into my pocket and pulled out maybe €150, and said, "I don't have my car at the airport, and your taxi drivers don't work for free." He finally realized he was not going to get anywhere asking me stupid harassment questions and so told me to get lost.