So I was crossing the Canadian-US Border Returning To the US........

Now you know what it feels like to be black (or brown skinned).

Sounds like there was a hellhound on your trail.

Hire a lawyer, and file a BIG lawsuit. That sounds traumatic, and worth a few million.

Hounddogharrier wrote:

Face it, the border patrol is about as close to the nazis as you get in America. They stop trains traveling through Rochester becasue they are traveling near the border. They set up road blocks on the Northway 50 miles from the border. Usually they violate the rights of Muslims and Mexicans, so people don't care, but every once in awhile they screw "regular" Americnas like yourself.

People elected Obama to straighten out atrocities like this, but it looks like he is too much of pussy to do anything about this or anything else Bush put into place.

For the record, my incident took place while either the first President Bush was in office or perhaps during Clinton's first term. GW might've changed things, but this is nothing new at all.

I go back and forth there a lot. The thing you saw happens in my vision about 1/5-1/10 times across, so its fairly usual. That's good, since it means they don't get jumpy, just do their job. They pulled you out so that they have control of the situation and therefore the agents are not liable to shoot you while guessing if you have a gun. I imagine the whole thing was a lot more calm after you were inside?I've also seen this reaction from people being aholes, either after being asked out of the car, or just having an attitude with the agent. Then they drive their car into that little set of garages and taker their car apart and leave it there. Good job remaining calm.You can even do something suspicious as long as you are calm and answer questions. I was in a back up last week and some guy on the bridge gets out of his car with his dog and walks it off the bridge to go to the bathroom, then gets back in. Understandable, but every stinking agent in the place was there in about 1 minute after he got back to the car. They talked to him, pet the dog and that was that (15 minutes later). Unfortunately, since the agents were interviewing a dog they were not processing people. These kind of things are what create the border traffic.

Hounddogharrier wrote:

People elected Obama to straighten out atrocities like this

First of all, this wasn't an atrocity. Seriously, give us a break. Ask the now-elderly Jews of WWII or the women of Africa what an atrocity is and get back to us.

Rojo - you should change your whole name, like the movie stars do. What's your porno name? Your last name plus the name of the street you grew up on?

My brother has a story much worse than this. He (and his vehicle) in Seattle were confused by police for another guy who called 911 threatening to commit suicide. 5-10 cops were literally pointing their guns at him from behind cop car doors. And they asked him to reach into his pocket to pull out his wallet!! He responded, "No way. You do it! I don't want to get shot!" The cop made him do it.

mcgato wrote:Next time you update your passport (and you may want to do it sooner rather than later), you may want to put your full middle name. With a common name like you have, anything that can make you unique may help.

Good idea - I recommend Kipchirchir

Something similar happened to me too....

rojo wrote:

4) Why would they pull me out of the car in the first place just because of the birth date coincidence? I mean they had my passport and knew it belonged to Robert C Johnson. Would a criminal of the name Robert E Johnson be likely to steal Robert C Johnson's passport for some reason? If not, then I don't see why they pulled me out of the car in the first place.

More likely, the guard was concerned that there was a typo on the no-fly list, not on your passport.

rojo wrote:

He then scans our passports and says "I'm going to need you to step outside the car."

Admit it, your first thought was: What the hell did Weldon do THIS time?!

(And your second thought: oh boy, this is payback by Obama and the Dems for having co-founded a pro-Bush website. I knew this day was gonna come)

I find it intriguing that responses seem to vary so much based on time/location. In your case, you had no issues one way, but then get nailed on the way back (presumably this guy did not get all of his outstanding warrants over the weekend).

When I flew to boston this spring for the marathon, we had a brief layover in Chicago, where my 5 year old was flagged by United because supposedly his name was on a no-fly list. We have a pretty unique last name, and his middle name is Maximilian, so I found that a bit hard to believe. Plus, he had just gotton on an American Airlines flight 2 hours prior with no issues. When I asked if United had such good security, or American had such bad security, I was told "it could be a little of both." It took 20 minutes before somone with enough seniority was able to come and verify that this 40 pound kid was not a threat. On the way home 3 days later (Midwest Air), no issues. Two months later, flew to Europe, also no issues. Makes me think that either airlines access lists differently (different databases? Outdated lists?) or that there are just a lot of bugs in the system. And apparently similar issues with border security. Oh well, at least no armed guys showed up for my kid.

Living close to the border and going over quite often, I've never had any trouble getting into Canada, but have more trouble getting back. Nothing like this story describes, but getting asked a lot more questions and such,and I've crossed in different places and different provinces before and have never had any major problems. One time they x-rayed my car and another he had me give him the keys and opened my trunk.

Rojo had many things working against him in this situation. Coming back over during a major holiday when customs have to work overtime and deal with a lot more people is one problem. The other is sharing a name with someone who is on multiple lists and has a ton of warrants. Which makes you think wouldn't the Canadians not let him in the country in the first place if he was armed and dangerous?

Could you also say what bridge you were crossing on? Most likely the Rainbow, but the Peace Bridge seems to usually be easier to cross.

XXXC wrote:

The other is sharing a name with someone who is on multiple lists and has a ton of warrants. Which makes you think wouldn't the Canadians not let him in the country in the first place if he was armed and dangerous?

Would you advocate for US databases to be easily accessed by various branches of Canadian law enforcement?

That's basically what you are expecting, that Canadian border officers be able to find out that a US citizen has outstanding US warrants.

What about other countries, like say France? Should their law enforcement have quick look-up access to US databases? What about Russia? Or China?

Wait. You have a grilfriend?

They were probably being extra cautious because it's a holiday weekend. My boyfriend and I got pulled over twice in the same night on Memorial Day weekend for having a license plate light out. It gives them a reason to pull you over so they can check for illegal substances and activities, etc. You knew you did nothing wrong, so acting calm was your best bet. They look for your reaction. Most guilty people will act belligerent and/or look extra nervous.

Get Real Real wrote:

I always give them my Passport AND my driver's license, and smile. And I always look up and to my right (by habit) remembering what I bought in Canada to bring home, and I've never had a problem.

What's with looking up and right?

Well I am Canadian, so I was mocking.

People always tell stories of how they got through security easily one time, but on a second trip they were stopped and searched even though the situation was exactly the same. They use this as evidence that our border/airline security is screwed up.

But guess what? You want your border/airline security to be inconsistent and unpredictable.

Buckly wrote:

Wait. You have a grilfriend?

If you mean girlfriend, I was shocked too. I think the rest of the story was about Canada or something.