REFUSED ENTRY TO USA

Hmmm, a bit of an image problem with customs officials, Robert?

So easily fixed, you know! Visit your local opportunity/thrift shop, purchase a pin striped suit, some "serious" horn rimmed glasses & a pre-loved brief case! Then pop this gear on prior to each each airport episode. Customs agents will love you!

Maybe because he often comes in from placers like Central and South America? (Asia'll do it too.)

For six brief, awful weeks I worked in Customs...some regions/countries are just automatic alerts..especially for frequent travellers and travelling light.

Both drug worries and illegal immigrant worries generally.

Mind you....I found canada MUCH tougher to get into then the US....but I got pulled aside coming into the US, apparently because I had flown in from Japan (which I wouldn't have seen seen as an "alert" place.)

in europe da officals r cool wiv public dey av good sense of humour

omg this was great
I can just picture it......

Not in Switzerland they didn't have a good sense of humor. I went from Germany over to Switzerland just for a couple of hours. Crossing back, they gave me the third degree who what why where and on and on ....so I told them I was a drug runner. That weren't laughing, I was

I've often wondered, standing in those long lines at airports, how exactly those officials decide who is "suspicious looking", & who isn't. I have never once been stopped (mind you, I am of incredibly wholesome appearance! ) ... but I formed the impression that some people were stopped over & over again, because of some preconceived notion on the part of customs officials about the likely appearance of "type of person" who might be a drug carrier, especially.
I vividly recall, on train trip from A to B across European borders some years ago, all of us being woken at the crack of dawn for a routine customs check. The one couple who was singled out for a super-thorough check was predictable: young, not "well off" travelers exactly & "untidy looking". Poor things, they had to pull out every single thing from their back-backs, open every single jar of vitamins, etc & explain what each item was.... I'm certain it'd happened to them time & time again. Purely because of their appearance .

Maybe if you get stopped a couple of times, you begin to expect it. That could make you look guilty - of something.

On the other hand, I was just looking at another thread title. Maybe customs people get bored, too.

I'm not sure about looking guilty, roger. Apprehensive maybe, if it's already happened a few times before. In the case I cited (above) it seemed to be more a case of the two young people not looking "respectable", or squeaky clean. They were obviously traveling on a shoe string. (To my eyes, anyway.)

Yeah, I'm sure customs officers get bored with their jobs, just like many of us from time to time.

i tried to get a life in the US


but they wouldn't let me in

it was a straight forward question (if slighlty tounge in cheek), i would have asked it of anyone inquiring about a situation like yours

Not really, just a lot of traveling. Most of the time nothing happens. The last time what caused it was that the president of Chile was in the airport and they had security ramped up. I came in just before the airport was closing down and under a lot of scrutiny.

You're right of course...though there is a schedule of random pull-overs.


Remember that's how Mr Asia did so well for a while.....cup-cake couriers.I got the full treatment at Heathrow once ----including self and baggage search (NOT strip thnk heavens) cos some of the plastic stuff piping stuff that supported a decoration on my handbag had a sharp end which had worked itself out a bit, and was felt by the official.


He quickly realised it and I were harmless, but regs is regs modom.

yeah wot eva