Immigration and Customs

Recently I’ve been binge watching a bunch of shows on YouTube about various border security agencies. There are ones for the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It’s interesting to see all the various types of security for travel by land, sea, or air, as well as the scanning that takes place of all mail (esp. packages) that travel from country to country. This made me think about all the times that I’ve been through immigration and customs as part of all the international travel that I’ve had the opportunity to do during my career.

I’ve been through the customs/immigration process well over 100 times that I can recall. Most of these have been pretty uneventful – on the outbound side getting my passport checked and then checking in my bags – on the inbound side getting my passport checked, gathering my bags from the carousel, and going through the “nothing to declare” aisle. But I’d like to report on four instances where it was not “uneventful,” in order from easiest to most intense.

Random Second Level Customs Check

In addition to pulling people for secondary customs checks “for cause,” the various customs authorities will occasionally pull people at random. I don’t know what percentage they pull, and it may vary from country to country, so you never know when they may decide to pull you for additional checking.

This only happened to me once, and I don’t recall which country it was – as I noted above, I’ve done a lot of international travel. It wasn’t a big deal, I just had to put my bag on a counter (I generally only traveled with a single small bag plus a carry-on for my laptop/papers), unzip it (I almost never locked it), and allow the customs inspector to go through everything. Nothing was found, I repacked my bag, zipped it back up, and was on my way. Probably only added an extra 10 minutes to my time going through customs – a small price to pay for helping the customs inspectors keep current with doing their job.

Going Through My Car

During the period from 1970 (when I purchased my first car), and 1975 (when we moved to PA), I made frequent trips between CT (my legal address before I got married and our first home after I got married) and MI (where I was still in grad school until 1971 and where my wife’s family lived). Most of the time that trip included crossing into/out of Canada at Niagara Falls, and crossing into/out of MI at either Detroit or Port Huron. During that time period a passport was not needed for US citizens entering Canada and you only had to show your driver’s license.

On one occasion we were crossing into Canada via the Detroit-Windsor tunnel and going through customs in Windsor. I didn’t have any suitcases, everything was just stuffed into my trunk in my fairly new 1970 Dodge Dart Swinger (red with a black vinyl roof). The customs folks decided that as a young man in his early 20s that I needed to be subject to a thorough inspection. I gave them the keys to my car and sat inside the customs building looking out the window as they went through my car with a fine-tooth comb. I remember nearly laughing when they found under my seat a plastic water bottle that I carried there to have a sip from time to time during the long drive to CT. The plastic bottle was shaped like a whiskey flask (which made it less prone to rolling around), and had a “jigger” shaped cap that you could use to measure out a small sip without putting the entire bottle to your lips. I pointed this to my wife as the inspector opened the bottle and put it up to her nose to smell what was in it. But to the inspector’s surprise it wasn’t vodka (which is also a clear liquid) but just plain old H2O!

This secondary inspection took a little longer than the 10 minutes of the first incident above – probably 20-25 minutes since the trunk was so disorganized. But, like the first incident, it was only a short delay in an otherwise long trip. I am very supportive of the work that these people do and felt fine about it.

Middle-East Trip

As part of my Y2K checking and visiting many of our subsidiaries around the world I needed to visit our subsidiaries in Dubai (UAE) and Israel.  Since the Arab countries and Israel are not on friendly terms with one another it is not possible to fly between these two countries.  I checked with my contacts in those countries to determine how to schedule the trip.  Thus, I first went to Dubai (via London) for a couple of days, then flew back to Europe (Rome) where I stayed overnight, removed the Dubai luggage tags and switched to a separately booked set of tickets.  Thus prepared, I went to the El Al section of the terminal the following day – three hours in advance (as instructed) instead of the standard two. 

Before even being allowed to check in my bags, I was assigned to a security officer for a 20-minute one-on-one interview.  He asked not only where was I from and where was I going, but such things as what was I going to be doing in Israel, who was I seeing, what hotel was I staying at, how was I planning on getting from the airport to the hotel, etc., how much the taxi ride cost – pretty detailed stuff (I was well prepared for all of it and had website printouts from the hotel, etc.).  He then left me and went and called my contact person in Israel to verify that I was expected.  Only then was I allowed to check in and get my boarding assignment. 

When I actually arrived in Israel, I asked the person in immigration to NOT stamp my passport as I might have to travel to an Arab country in the future, which request he honored, instead stamping a piece of paper and putting in my passport to be surrendered when I left the country (this is standard practice for business men in the middle east – some even claim to have “lost” their passport and get a second one so they can use one for Israel and one everywhere else.)

An interesting follow-up to this trip: since I was flying business class on this trip El-Al handed out a “goodie bag” to the customers in that part of the plane. This included El-Al labeled items such as a face mask (to help with taking a nap), and a small pouch with a pair of tweezers, nail clippers, and a pair of cuticle scissors. I found the latter quite useful and put the pouch in my travel bag with my shaver, etc. On a trip several years later, and in the aftermath of 9/11 when TSA was new and was really clamping down on travel, I went through TSA security with just a small carry-on for a short trip. The travel implements showed up on the x-ray scan and TSA confiscated my cuticle scissors. How ridiculous! These “scissors” had blades that were about 3/8” long!  But the TSA was in the process of refining their newly developed rules and ANY scissors were considered contraband at the time so they took them away from me. I still have that travel pouch and use it on a regular basis, so the blank spot where the cuticle scissors used to be is a constant reminder of how reactionary the US government can be!

Getting Flagged for a Potential Illegal Substance

In the mid-1980s I took a trip with our church to Venezuela.  We have a program called TFE (Teens For Evangelism) that introduces teens to missions – first with a weekend ministry in the US, then with a week-long ministry in the US, and finally in their third year with a two week trip to a foreign country.  My wife and I helped lead the team to Rubio, Venezuela. 

While that was our home base, we traveled to other cities/towns in the area.  Since this part of Venezuela is right up against the Columbian border, it had its interesting moments.  The most memorable for me was on the return trip. 

We had gone through customs and immigration and were in the gate area when a LARGE security officer came up to our group and asked for me by name.  He asked me to follow him as we went back through security (at that point I was technically in the country illegally and no one else in our team knew where he had taken me).  We went back to the area where they were scanning bags and he asked me to unlock my bag. 

While scanning my suitcase they had seen some suspicious shadows of bags of powder in my suitcase and wanted to see if it was illegal drugs (since we had been on the Columbian border).  What it was were the bags of Venezuelan coffee I had purchased at a coffee plantation the previous day to use as gifts – but the x-ray machine only showed bags of powder.  After checking them out and determining that I was not a drug runner, I was escorted back through security to the gate area – and everyone else on the team was very happy to see me again!

This was definitely the most unusual and somewhat scary incident in all my times going through customs and immigration. Not because I was doing anything illegal, but because my wife and the entire rest of the team did not know where I was being taken and if/when I would be coming back.

As I stated earlier, I am very supportive of the work that the various customs and immigration agencies do. Their job is not an easy one and the occasional inconveniences that I have had over the years are a small price to pay.