posted on March 19, 2003 07:46:27 PM new
Just got back from 5 days in Mexico. the girls and I went down for a friend's wedding, we crossed today at a very busy port. Our entry went pretty much like this:
Dept. of Homeland Security INS Border guard guy: "How many in the vehicle?"(Hire the handicapped?)
profe: "Um, let's see, uhh..one...two...Three ..that's it, three!"
DHSINSBGG: "very funny, everybody a US citizen?"
profe: "I am"
daughter 2: "me too"
daughter 1: (the smartass) "I am a Mexican citizen" (she's also a US citizen)
DHSINSBGG: "May I see your Mexican passport?"
daughter 1: "don't have one"
DHSINSBGG: "I'll um..need some proof of nationality"
daughter 1: "how about my US passport?"
DHSINSBGG: "Oh, ok, that'll be fine" (note, DHSINSBGG does NOT ask for an explanation, profe shakes head in bewilderment)
DHSINSBGG: "are you bringing back any contraband items from Mexico?"
profe: "nope"
DHSINSBGG: "what's under the back seat?"
profe: "a tire iron, a set of jumper cables, and a box of 25 Cohiba cigars made in Havana, Cuba"(it should be noted here that the vehicle is a dual cab pickup with a utility bed with half a dozen locked tool boxes, and a big ammo crate welded to the bed, it is also key locked)
DHSINSBGG: "very funny, have a cigar for me when you get home and you folks drive safely now"
Daughter 1 has been severly chastized, although she can spot an idiot a mile away, and has no mercy on them, so I'm sure my words went unheard. As I savor my first Cuban heater in more than six months, it's nice to know our borders are so secure now.
posted on March 19, 2003 08:19:53 PM new
Prof - don't you know that terrorists and drug smugglers have no sense of humor and are therefore incapable of raging sarcasm
I used to cross the Tijuana border three, sometimes four times a week. Things have changed alot since 9/11 but they will never be as secure as some would like. In the week or two after 9/11 border waits at the main TJ border crossing were up to five hours long. Hundreds of people took to their bikes to get thru faster. San Ysidro (the US border town became awash with grown men on their 10 year olds bikes.
posted on March 20, 2003 05:31:20 AM new
No tequila, it's Carlos I brandy by Pedro Domecq for me...only one bottle, saved about 15 bucks, if I don't count the lecture I got from daughter 2...The Cohibas were a gift..otherwise it would have been 1 cigar, not a whole box!
posted on March 20, 2003 07:01:20 AM new
The wedding was huge and lots of fun. There were relatives from the U.S. as well as Spain and Argentina.
Does New Jersey issue passports?
posted on March 20, 2003 10:32:17 AM new
Don't think it's any better at the border to Canada. We go several times a year. This time we were stopped because we didn't have our kids' birth certificates. We asked why we were being hassled when we were never asked for them before. We were told it had to do with terrorism. We asked them if they thought our 5 year old daughter was a terrorist. They said we might be kidnappers. We asked what terrorism had to do with kidnapping and did they really think we kidnapped 5 different children, aged 5-15. They asked, "How do we know that all these children are yours?" My wife told them to keep the ones they weren't sure of and we would pick them up on the way back. They made us stand in three different lines for over an hour (this was about 1 AM), stamped a bunch of papers and handed us some papers in French which we had to give at the border to get through. I asked them if we had been there long enough to be declared Canadian citizens.
What's ridiculous is that in the past there was no real security and no one felt the need for any. Suddenly there's a need, but no one can come up with a workable plan. So instead they just create stupid random rules that achieve nothing.
Here's another one: you can't mail a 2lb package in a mailbox. You must bring it to the post office. What does this achieve? 1) the post office does not open the box, so the same bomb that could be dropped in a mailbox, could be mailed at the post office. Neither does the post office ask for ID of the sender. 2) What does the 2-lb limit accomplish? Is one pound of anthrax not lethal? Will one pound of explosives not cause damage? Again, it's a pointless rule invented by some incompetent manager who just had to have something say at some pointless meeting.
I shudder to think of the consequences of real terrorism, like Israel experiences almost daily. We are so unprepared.
posted on March 20, 2003 03:10:03 PM new
LOL on our local news they had one of their reporters jump from the US to Canada in a farmers field his filed is half in Washingtom State and half in Canada there are no cameras there plus they have reported in the past about the multi million dollar camera system they just put in that goes out on them all the time.
