In fairness, it’s not new: I remember in the late 80’s, people entering the US on the visa waiver program were given a green cardboard form to fill out in the plane before landing. The form has a bunch of questions like “What are you coming to the US for?” “Where are you staying?” etc.
Standard stuff. But it also had a really silly question: “Are you a war criminal?” That’s a seriously stupid question: if you’re a war criminal, you’re unlikely to answer truthfully, and if you’re not, you’re going to answer No of course.
Some smartass in the plane joked that he would answer Yes for shits and giggles. Well, the joke was on him: he was detained and grilled rather thoroughly for 10 hours and then kicked out of the country. He kept saying “It was a joke! It was a joke!” but the INS officers kept saying “We’re not amused and you’re going to find out just how much we are not.”
The same sort of story was posted in the newspaper - perhaps around the same time, maybe mid-80’s - about a dude traveling with a violin. When the immigration officer asked him what it was, he said “A machine gun of course!” Same thing: he was pulled out and interrogated rather roughly for hours.
All that was pre-9/11 and pre-USA Patriot Act, when things were still pretty chill. But even back them, it was standard advice not to fuck around with immigration in any way possible.
I can’t even imagine fucking around with immigration or the TSA. I get stopped often enough when I’m not doing anything.
Funny story. I usually use my Passport Card when I travel domestically. Makes sense, right? I mean how much more official of an ID can you have from the government. Anyway, a few weeks ago I was flying from NC to FL. I get to the TSA agent, and hand her my ID (Passport Card) and boarding pass. You would have thought I had handed her some piece of alien technology. She looked at it, turned it over a few times and then asked me “Do you have your passport, or any other ID”. I was literally dumbfounded. In all the years that I’ve been doing this, it’s never once been questioned, or caused any confusion. I replied “ma’am, you’re literally holding my passport in your hand”. Shockingly, that did nothing to alleviate the confusion, and she eventually had to get a supervisor to help. Coming back from FL, handed the TSA agent the card, they scanned it and told me to move along lol.
Fair. We really shouldn’t be forced to think about this bullshit, but here we are.
In fairness, it’s not new: I remember in the late 80’s, people entering the US on the visa waiver program were given a green cardboard form to fill out in the plane before landing. The form has a bunch of questions like “What are you coming to the US for?” “Where are you staying?” etc.
Standard stuff. But it also had a really silly question: “Are you a war criminal?” That’s a seriously stupid question: if you’re a war criminal, you’re unlikely to answer truthfully, and if you’re not, you’re going to answer No of course.
Some smartass in the plane joked that he would answer Yes for shits and giggles. Well, the joke was on him: he was detained and grilled rather thoroughly for 10 hours and then kicked out of the country. He kept saying “It was a joke! It was a joke!” but the INS officers kept saying “We’re not amused and you’re going to find out just how much we are not.”
The same sort of story was posted in the newspaper - perhaps around the same time, maybe mid-80’s - about a dude traveling with a violin. When the immigration officer asked him what it was, he said “A machine gun of course!” Same thing: he was pulled out and interrogated rather roughly for hours.
All that was pre-9/11 and pre-USA Patriot Act, when things were still pretty chill. But even back them, it was standard advice not to fuck around with immigration in any way possible.
I can’t even imagine fucking around with immigration or the TSA. I get stopped often enough when I’m not doing anything.
Funny story. I usually use my Passport Card when I travel domestically. Makes sense, right? I mean how much more official of an ID can you have from the government. Anyway, a few weeks ago I was flying from NC to FL. I get to the TSA agent, and hand her my ID (Passport Card) and boarding pass. You would have thought I had handed her some piece of alien technology. She looked at it, turned it over a few times and then asked me “Do you have your passport, or any other ID”. I was literally dumbfounded. In all the years that I’ve been doing this, it’s never once been questioned, or caused any confusion. I replied “ma’am, you’re literally holding my passport in your hand”. Shockingly, that did nothing to alleviate the confusion, and she eventually had to get a supervisor to help. Coming back from FL, handed the TSA agent the card, they scanned it and told me to move along lol.