clearing customs?

Irishguy16

What was your worst experience while trying to clear customs?

A few months ago, I went to Australia to meet my brother. I spent a week there, before moving on. I got to the emmigration booth in Perth, and straight away the questions came out in force!

I showed the emmigration officer my passport, and straight away she saw the need to ask me a hundred questions. I was observing everyone in the line in front of me, and they got through within a minute or two, but I was about 5 minutes, and it caught me by surprise.It started with "Oh Irish, you're a long way away from home,what are you doing here?". My response "I'm here on a holiday to visit my brother" and she continued "What does he do?,who does he live with?,how long has he been to Australia?, where are you coming from? Where were you before this? Why did you leave? Where will you go next?, what will you do in Perth?......

I felt very intimidated and angry at the same time. I did nothing wrong, I had my travel visa arranged in advance, and I had my iternary to move on after Oz. It was a very traumatic experience and I wasn't expecting such negative attention after a long flight.

Any similiar stories?

athtrasna

Fairly common in Australia, have you never seen nothing to declare?

DeepSleeper

You found it to be a "very traumatic experience"... Seriously?

iusedtoknow

I go through USA immigration/customs 10-12 times a year. Sometimes I get nice guy's who just take my photo and prints, stamp the passport and am on my way in 1 minute flat

I've been taken into secondary questioning once , even though I am on a work visa- where I had to stay for around 40 minutes until everything cleared up.

Entering Canada before I was stopped for 30 minutes as my name was flagged (different iusedtoknow)

Coming back into Spain from Argentina, I got through passport fine (of course...I am european) but customs opened up my suitcase, went through EVERYTHING in the search for drugs. It wasn't just me though, pretty much everyone on that flight was searched.

Going into Bolivia EVERYTHING was searched, and they told me there were irregularities with my entry form/passport. $50 cleared up the irregularities pretty quickly.

In short....welcome to world wide travel. If the thought of a few questions from a guard that is given the job of protecting his/her country then maybe you shouldn't travel.

Pat Mustard

Irishguy16 wrote: »

before moving on. I got to the emmigration booth in Perth, and straight away the questions came out in force!

I showed the emmigration officer my passport, and straight away she saw the need to ask me a hundred questions.

If there is a choice of queues, it's not always possible to spot the queue that will move the quickest, straight away.

However, I have found that younger immigration officers can be a little more exuberant than older ones. Bright eyed twenty-three year olds are to be avoided, if possible. For whatever reasons, be they lack of experience or over-conscientiousness, they tend to ask more questions and their queues can move more slowly.

Some fifty year old rubber-stamper is just the job. Doesn't give hoot, just stamps the firms, does the minimum required to keep his pension and 'next...'

conor_ie

Same happened to me arriving into Sydney after an overnight flight from Bangkok.

My passport wouldn't swipe at the first desk so of course that was a big no no, I was asked to go to the secondary line where I got the 20 questions.. What visa were you on, how long were you staying for, have you family and friends in Australia? I innocently put my hands on top of the counter and was told very quickly to stand back! Not something you want when you've not slept much on the way over! At the same time they've a job to do so you just let them do it and move on!

killbillvol2

Israel. No contest.

Atlantic Dawn

Your experience was pretty much standard, have had similar going to US. If you are under 30 they will likely ask you these questions suspecting you may be there to work illegally. They could have been much worse and done the drugs checks that you see on the Nothing To Declare.

keithclancy

Worst Experience
JFK ... was a bloody 3 hour long queue simulator, also they had some guys there that seemed to be security guards or something, just giving out to people for no good reason.

They screamed at some Italian Guy because he went to the Immigration desk when the Immigration person had called for the next person but the security guys had not seen it or something (basically the security guy was sleazing all over some girl in the queue and wasn't paying attention)

Best experience was Sri Lanka, efficient, the Visa Waiver thing online was easy to do and Immigration give you a Welcome pack with a Pre-Paid SIM.

I don't mind being asked questions at all, it's part of their job.

In JFK I heard some Irish guy saying "I'm on Holidays" when being asked what his business in the United States was.

If he said the purpose of his visit was 'Pleasure' he wouldn't have spent the next 20 minutes giving an overview of his entire trip