Favorite and least favorite US- Canada Border Crossings

[kphoger]

Since when does the US do exit inspections?

since whenever they want to.  I got one at Columbus, NM heading into Palomas, Chih and I am thinking they simply were bored.  When I crossed into Mexico, I looked back and saw - for the first time in my life - nobody in line to enter the US.

I've been inspected multiple times by the CBP upon exiting the US at the southern border, but I've never had to fill out any paperwork; I don't even think they've made me get out of the car.

mucho text

So, in general, have you had better experiences at major or minor crossings?

[english si]

I hope they learned that the question "Have you ever been fingerprinted?" is dangerously ambiguous for someone who isn't a native English speaker.

It is difficult even for native speakers, who may very well have been fingerprinted outside the context of booking after arrest.  It is a bit like being asked on a job application whether you have ever been convicted of a crime:  do you have to say Yes when the only crime in question is a minor traffic offense?

I would automatically say "yes" - when on an elementary (-equivalent) school trip to the police station I was fingerprinted, and again with the Cub Scouts - simply as it was a simple activity we could do (along with visiting the cells, showing off the blues and twos on a car and hearing from a copper what bobbies do for a living, what equipment they carry, etc). Pretty sure we did it a couple of other times at school, as part of a lesson. None of those were kept on file.

Nowhere does that question say to me 'have you ever been arrested?' and even then, arrests shouldn't be on the record or of any concern to border guards if you were released without charge or warning.

Oh, and at the US border fingerprinted my index finger last time I visited.

[oscar]

I have crossed the border dozens of times, and have probably gotten more than my share of secondary searches (one in each direction on my latest trip, at I-81/ON 137 crossing into Ontario and QC 133/I-89 returning through Vermont -- this is starting to get irritating).  So I have a lot of aggravating experiences. 

The worst was at the ferry crossing from Cape Vincent NY to Wolfe Island ON, where Customs Canada seems to do a secondary on one vehicle on every crossing, and since the ferry holds only three to six cars, the odds are high you'll be selected for a search.  Only consolation is that they make sure your search is done before the next victim arrives on the following trip, which isn't that long since that round-trip across the St. Lawrence is pretty short.

My favorite crossings were multiple trips in both directions between Alaska and Canada.  Customs on both sides are used to tourists and Alaska residents flitting back and forth across that border, so no stupid questions or hassles.

Problem searches crossing into Canada --

I-95 into New Brunswick on my way to Newfoundland (friendly search ordered by a rookie agent, we talked about American football during the search), Peace Bridge into Ontario, Seaway Bridge into Ontario, light search while I was in line crossing into Manitoba at ND 1 (just a quick flip through my photo albums in the trunk, with some muttering about kiddie porn), the above-mentioned crossings into Ontario on I-81 (included scan of my laptop, thumb drive, and laptop) and at Wolfe Island.

Back into the U.S. --

MB 75/I-29 into North Dakota (vehicle taken apart basically, including my dirty laundry, and a search of my various electronic devices; no effort to reassemble my belongings after the search), the above-mentioned search at I-89 in Vermont (long waits due to short staffing, which didn't reduce the number of secondary searches).

Uneventful crossings in either direction --

between Stewart BC and Hyder AK (back then, no customs checkpoint on either side; now there's one on the Canada side), multiple other trips back and forth between Alaska and Canada mentioned above, Sidney BC ferry into U.S., I-5 in both directions, US 395 in both directions on different trips., US 89 into U.S., I-15 into U.S., US 52 into Saskatchewan, US 83 south of Melita MB (might've helped that I mentioned "Melita" was my mother's name), MN 61 into Canada, I-75 in both directions (but obnoxious questions from U.S. Customs while in line about how come I wasn't married), I-69 in both directions, I-190 in both directions, Rainbow Bridge and Peace Bridge from Ontario into U.S., I-81 in both directions except the one time mentioned above, ON 16 into U.S., I-87 in both directions, US 11 into New York (customs agent accepted my explanation that I was trying to clinch the north end of US 11), I-89/QC 133 into Quebec, A-55/I-91 into Vermont, US 201 into Quebec, one of the crossings into the U.S. to ME 11, Campobello Island off the east coast of Maine in both directions, and at Calais ME into Canada.

[deathtopumpkins]

(included scan of my laptop, thumb drive, and laptop)

Wait, they can look through your laptop if you bring it with you crossing the border? That's legal!?

[Brandon]

(included scan of my laptop, thumb drive, and laptop)

Wait, they can look through your laptop if you bring it with you crossing the border? That's legal!?

Yes.  There's a lot of violating the 4th Amendment at the border.  Personally, I'm all for dropping border controls along the US-Canadian Border.

[corco]

The Constitution doesn't apply to US citizens entering Canada or Canadians entering the US... I do wonder if an American citizen entering the US would have to consent to a laptop search

[Brandon]

The Constitution doesn't apply to US citizens entering Canada or Canadians entering the US... I do wonder if an American citizen entering the US would have to consent to a laptop search

IIRC, yes they do, as I've read it when coming back via ship.

[J N Winkler]

The Constitution doesn't apply to US citizens entering Canada or Canadians entering the US... I do wonder if an American citizen entering the US would have to consent to a laptop search

This piece by the Electronic Frontier Foundation suggests No, the reason being that the Fourth Amendment essentially does not apply at the border:

https://www.eff.org/wp/defending-privacy-us-border-guide-travelers-carrying-digital-devices

I think the reason for this, ultimately, is that customs officers have generally been held to have the right of warrantless search of newly arrived travellers.  This is a legal convention that pre-dates the Constitution and is more or less international in scope.

I have personally never had my electronic devices inspected in more than fifteen years of international travel, and indeed the EFF piece suggests that such searches are rare.  The consequences of having devices selected for inspection, however, can be quite severe, even in quotidian scenarios such as having a stockpile of illegally downloaded audiovisual material on a mass storage device.  This is why it is becoming more common to resort to home VPN servers and remote desktop connections to transfer sensitive data over the Internet, rather than physically transporting it across the border on a storage device.

[vdeane]

It's for this reason that I refuse to take electronic devices across the border if I can avoid it, especially since they've been known to seize electronic devices without cause.  I don't see a border exemption to the 4th amendment, so we can blame the supreme court on ruling on convenience rather than the actual wording in the Constitution (why the court is allowed to consider anything beyond the actual text of the Constitution is beyond me).

[J N Winkler]

It's for this reason that I refuse to take electronic devices across the border if I can avoid it, especially since they've been known to seize electronic devices without cause.  I don't see a border exemption to the 4th amendment, so we can blame the supreme court on ruling on convenience rather than the actual wording in the Constitution (why the court is allowed to consider anything beyond the actual text of the Constitution is beyond me).

Actually, the Fourth Amendment was never designed to limit customs officers in the performance of searches on new arrivals.  The black-letter text is as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The key word is unreasonable.  Expansive searches at the border are not now and have never been considered unreasonable.  That may or may not be fair; it is just something that has been a feature of international law since the eighteenth century at least.  What is considered unreasonable (per the cites accompanying the EFF piece, some of which are to federal court decisions dealing with border searches) are things like this:

*  Keeping your data appliances indefinitely, without formally seizing them or telling you when they will be returned

*  Extending the border search by defining an extended part of your inland travel as part of the act of crossing the border

Edit:  If you want to see what a nightmarish border search by a Canada Customs officer looks like, just watch the movie Ararat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ararat_%28film%29

It is my personal gold standard for how badly pear-shaped things can go at the border.

[kphoger]

I-75 ... obnoxious questions from U.S. Customs while in line about how come I wasn't married

Say what!!

[Dr Frankenstein]

mucho text

So, in general, have you had better experiences at major or minor crossings?

Never got a secondary at a secondary (badum-tish) crossing, and I've never waited much (except one time on U.S. 11 / QC 223 Canada-bound), therefore those. The smaller the better; that guy in the shack on the side of a deserted back road who sees only a dozen people in a day will probably be (relatively) friendlier than the one in the highway booth processing that amount of people every hour. And if I do get searched, at least I want the guy who acts like a human, which is more likely if he's not working like if he was on a production chain.

I've heard about getting your electronics searched, but I've never known anyone who's been through this until now. I never bring my external drives for this reason, and I do my own search on my laptop's hard disk on the day before I leave, secure-deleting anything that might cause trouble. Then I defrag it and blank out the free space.

(Don't worry, it's mostly stuff that the lobbyists from the MPAA, RIAA and software companies might not approve of. You can get in trouble for importing counterfeit "goods.")

Regarding U.S. exit inspections, they're probably very rare, since most crossings don't have any kind permanent setup that may facilitate those. I know of an internal checkpoint on I-87 southbound, but I don't think anyone here has ever seen it active.

[vdeane]

Given the Beyond the Border program, Canadian customs will soon be serving as "exit inspections" from the US...

I suspect that Canada wanted to try a computer search with me on one of my crossings (they asked if I had any hardware or software), but the joke was on them: I didn't have anything on me except my camera and phone.  I also had a customs officer who seemed very disappointed that I didn't have anything in my trunk.

I've also noticed another interesting thing with the border: I've NEVER seen a female US customs officer, but Canada appears to be 50/50.

It's for this reason that I refuse to take electronic devices across the border if I can avoid it, especially since they've been known to seize electronic devices without cause.  I don't see a border exemption to the 4th amendment, so we can blame the supreme court on ruling on convenience rather than the actual wording in the Constitution (why the court is allowed to consider anything beyond the actual text of the Constitution is beyond me).

Actually, the Fourth Amendment was never designed to limit customs officers in the performance of searches on new arrivals.  The black-letter text is as follows:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

The key word is unreasonable.  Expansive searches at the border are not now and have never been considered unreasonable.  That may or may not be fair; it is just something that has been a feature of international law since the eighteenth century at least.  What is considered unreasonable (per the cites accompanying the EFF piece, some of which are to federal court decisions dealing with border searches) are things like this:

*  Keeping your data appliances indefinitely, without formally seizing them or telling you when they will be returned

*  Extending the border search by defining an extended part of your inland travel as part of the act of crossing the border

Edit:  If you want to see what a nightmarish border search by a Canada Customs officer looks like, just watch the movie Ararat.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ararat_%28film%29

It is my personal gold standard for how badly pear-shaped things can go at the border.

Personally, I don't agree about randomly searching people extensively without warrants at the border being reasonable, especially with citizens.  IMO, customs should NOT have anything to do with law enforcement like they do now - they should be border guards tasked with making sure applicable duties are paid and that inadmissible people and goods are turned back, nothing more.  If they encounter something illegal, they should simply turn the person back and alert law enforcement in the other country.

[Dr Frankenstein]

I've seen two female U.S. customs inspectors. One was an african-american woman, I forgot where (it was when I was still crossing with my birth certificate), and the other was that PMSed bitch (to me, she deserves that title) in North Troy.

[agentsteel53]

* US 3 NH-QC, because you can literally walk across the border without stopping at Customs. You park just before, walk by, tell them you're going hiking, and the trail is along the border.

this in stark contrast with Derby Line.

[vdeane]

I've seen two female U.S. customs inspectors. One was an african-american woman, I forgot where (it was when I was still crossing with my birth certificate), and the other was that PMSed bitch (to me, she deserves that title) in North Troy.

Come to think of it, I have seen one: at the Byrne Dairy gas station in Cicero, NY.  She must have worked at Syracuse Airport.

[kphoger]

Sorry, I have much more experience crossing the southern border than the northern one, but I try to keep my comments and stories applicable to the thread.


When we cross into México, we use an out-of-the-way crossing, and I've found the officials to be pretty friendly.  Last time, in fact, one guy was cracking jokes inside the FMM office.  I try to avoid congestion in general, so it's good to know that slower crossings tend to be less obnoxious.

There's been more than one occasion that we were stopped at either an inspection point (inland station on both sides of the US-Mexican border) or a roadside checkpoint (in México), and then simply waved through when the officer noticed our child(ren) asleep in the back seat.  I guess they didn't want to wake them up; they must have kids of their own.

I also had a customs officer who seemed very disappointed that I didn't have anything in my trunk.

Some friends of ours were once driving north from México to pick up some friends of theirs at the airport in Laredo.  It was just a day trip to pick them up, so they had nothing but a duffel bag in the back of their 4Runner.  That didn't stop US immigration in Laredo from bringing sniffer dogs into the vehicle, though.  Two dogs, and an empty vehicle.  Weird.

I've seen two female U.S. customs inspectors. One was an african-american woman, I forgot where (it was when I was still crossing with my birth certificate), and the other was that PMSed bitch (to me, she deserves that title) in North Troy.

I've had a female inspection agent at the inland station on I-35 north of Laredo.  Maybe more too, but I don't really pay attention to their sex/color/hairstyle/etc.  The one that really caught me off guard was a roadside checkpoint near Saltillo, Coahuila.  The officers were dressed in full riot gear, including face masks and assault rifles.  I heard one officer say to the other "Gringos" when they were looking at my DL and car import paperwork, and I wondered if that was good or bad.  When the other officer handed my stuff back to me, a pleasant female voice came from behind the face mask, wishing us well–in English, no less.

[AsphaltPlanet]

One of my favourite border crossing memories comes from a few years ago crossing at the Detroit Windsor Tunnel.  A few friends and I had crossed to go to a Detroit Lions football game.  We tailgated, ate, drank, all of the fun stuff to do at a game.  On the way back, one of my friends had already passed out in the back from the drink by the time we hit Canadian customs.  With the back window rolled down for the Customs Inspector to see, she took one look at us asked "football game?" and let us through.

The Lions went 0-16 that season.  I lost $20 that game figuring that they were due.

[agentsteel53]

I've seen two female U.S. customs inspectors. One was an african-american woman, I forgot where (it was when I was still crossing with my birth certificate), and the other was that PMSed bitch (to me, she deserves that title) in North Troy.

Come to think of it, I have seen one: at the Byrne Dairy gas station in Cicero, NY.  She must have worked at Syracuse Airport.

I've seen so many, in all countries, that I do not note it as unusual.  Mexico seems to have a smaller proportion of women working the land crossings, but their airports are staffed similarly to US and Canada.  Europe and South America seem to be just about 50/50.

[catch22]

I also had a customs officer who seemed very disappointed that I didn't have anything in my trunk.

I've also noticed another interesting thing with the border: I've NEVER seen a female US customs officer, but Canada appears to be 50/50.

My only really bad experience was when a friend of mine & I were returning via the Ambassador Bridge at Detroit from a long weekend in Toronto.  It was about 10 at night, no line to speak of.  The agent took one look at us (darn hippie types) and sent us over to the main building for the secondary inspection.  They tore my car apart, poked around everywhere (including under the car), popped the hubcaps, deflated and broke the bead on the spare tire to look inside, and rifled our luggage and left it in a pile beside the car.  The two guys doing all this were obviously disappointed they didn't find a thing other than my stash of Coffee Crisp bars.

This was somewhat balanced out a couple of years later, when I and a different friend were returning home via the same crossing at 2 in the morning after a two-week camping trip in Quebec. The inside of the van we used was really messy (and I guess, so were we) and we had a couple of cases of beer we were bringing back for my dad.  The female agent (to date, my one and only on the US side) asked us if we had anything to declare.  I mentioned the beer, but she took a quick look at the mess in the van, smiled, and waved us on without another word.

[J N Winkler]

I don't think I have had my passport inspected by a female inspector any of the times I have entered the US at an airport.  (The women inspectors I have encountered at airports have tended to be working the green-suited dogs.)  I also don't think I have encountered a female inspector at a land crossing on the northern border, except once at Porthill, Idaho, when I walked past the Customs post to take photographs of the border monumentation, and then had to return through Customs to explain that I had not actually entered Canada.  I did have my passport processed going into Mexico by a female INM officer the second time I crossed at Ojinaga.

Personally, I don't agree about randomly searching people extensively without warrants at the border being reasonable, especially with citizens.  IMO, customs should NOT have anything to do with law enforcement like they do now - they should be border guards tasked with making sure applicable duties are paid and that inadmissible people and goods are turned back, nothing more.  If they encounter something illegal, they should simply turn the person back and alert law enforcement in the other country.

As to expansiveness of border search, it doesn't really matter whether we agree with the legal doctrine underlying it--it is still what prevails.  I think there is a case for limiting search of data appliances because it is highly and unreasonably burdensome to be without data which is not duplicated on another device that is protected from search, but such a limitation will never happen absent specific Congressional action to limit the search powers of Customs officers.

It will never be practical to segregate Customs enforcement from law enforcement, because identification and confiscation of contraband is a key part of their duties.  I also don't agree that US citizens should have special protection from search that is not available to foreigners.  It damages our reputation for fairness and due process, and in any case US citizens already enjoy the advantage of guaranteed entry to the US that is not available to aliens.

[Beeper1]

Regarding U.S. exit inspections, they're probably very rare, since most crossings don't have any kind permanent setup that may facilitate those. I know of an internal checkpoint on I-87 southbound, but I don't think anyone here has ever seen it active.

I remember that checkpoint being active back when I would be traveling to school in northern NY.  They would set up at the southbound High Peaks rest area between exits 30 and 29.  They also would set up a checkpoint fairly often on NY 30 southbound between Tupper Lake and Long Lake. Between those two, chekpoints (and increased police presence on US 9  in North Hudson, you would have to go a long way around to avoid a checkpoint stop.  This was back around 2003-2005ish, so I don't know if they still use those checkpoints today.  I don't know if a similar one was set up on I-81 or NY 12 below Lowville, but I know residents in northern NY were angry that they would frequently have to essentially clear customs just to go downstate. 

[Dr Frankenstein]

The signs for the High Peaks checkpoint are still there, folded up.

[realjd]

I've always been hassled a bit by Canadian immigration (multiple ports of entry) but have never had any issues with CBP coming home.

Of course now that I have Global Entry, the conversation with the CBP officer at the land border last summer went like this:
<hand him my and my wife's GE cards>
CBP: How was Canada?
Me: Nice.
<officer hands them back>
CBP: Welcome home.

Come to think of it, I was hassled much less by the CBSA guy than usual that trip also. Unlike Nexus, Global Entry doesn't offer trusted traveler privileges into Canada, but he may have seen it pop up on his computer screen and decided we weren't trouble. All he asked us was how long we were staying and if we had any guns or drugs then let us through. Ordinarily they ask us a lot more than that.

[vdeane]

There's also folded signs for what I assume is an interior checkpoint on NY 30 between NY 86 and NY 456 (more generally, Saranac Lake and Malone).  I've also seen a border patrol car give a very thorough search of a truck at the snowplow turnaround on US 11 on the Jefferson-St. Lawrence county line too.  I don't think I-81 has any checkpoints.

As to expansiveness of border search, it doesn't really matter whether we agree with the legal doctrine underlying it--it is still what prevails.

The Constitution trumps "international convention", and it's worth pointing out the the US and Canada have the strictest border controls of any friendly countries on the planet.  The Europeans have no border controls between each other, and those countries hate each other!

It will never be practical to segregate Customs enforcement from law enforcement, because identification and confiscation of contraband is a key part of their duties.  I also don't agree that US citizens should have special protection from search that is not available to foreigners.  It damages our reputation for fairness and due process, and in any case US citizens already enjoy the advantage of guaranteed entry to the US that is not available to aliens.

There is a big difference between making sure inadmissible goods and people don't get in and conducting general law enforcement operations (which is what customs currently does).  And as you said, US citizens are guaranteed entry.  That means that any procedures for determining whether one should be allowed to enter should not apply, yet you still have to prove yourself "worthy" of returning home before they'll let you go.

And yes, I'm in favor of eliminating the border.  If Europe can do it, so can we, at least as long as people can stop being paranoid over "terrorism".  Why does the government always insist on creating a boogeyman so that it can implement wartime policies without question?