The Immigration Hall at Newark is bright and shiny and large and somewhat welcoming. It is pretty deserted at 6 a.m. save for our (large) flight. I find my way over to the US Citizens/Residents line and pretty quickly am handing my passport and entrance/customs card to the ICE CBP (US Customs & Border Protection — I think that’s the right agency) officer there.
He takes it all, does some tappity-tappity on the computer, asking me a few questions, nothing out of the ordinary: how was the flight, where did you come from, how long were you there, reason for travel, what do you do, that sort of thing. I answer as best I can on three hours sleep in about the last 24 hours relative, but I’m friendly and amiable and all.
Then he asks, “So, the last time you traveled internationally was in … March?”
“Yes, Amsterdam. Um, Netherlands.” Should I explain I was in Leiden? No, leave it at that.
“Did they ask you a lot of questions when you got back?”
Did they? “I don’t remember. I don’t think so.”
Tappity-tappity. “Okay, I’m going to need to take you to a supervisor to ask you a few questions.
Yikes! On the other hand, I have a three-plus hour layover, so no big worries. I have the confidence of an innocent man. I smile. “Okay, sure.”
I wave a farewell to one of my colleagues still in line, but decide it’s not a good idea to tell him to send a lawyer if I’m not in the office on Monday. Someone might take it amiss.
He escorts me down an elevator to an area off of the pre-Customs luggage carousels, chatting with me as we go. I think he asks if I have any layover time pressures, and I say no. It’s all friendly but professional but unthreatening.
I sit down in a large waiting area. There are perhaps a dozen other people there, all of as unsavory as we can be. Such as that grandmotherly Indian woman in a wheelchair, or that young couple over there, or etc. Granted, there were a couple of folks there I could “profile” into being deadly terroristic types, but for the most part we look like a random sampling off the plane. Maybe we are.
There are several desks at the front of the room — which looks like it could handle several times the crowd we are — and various agents heads-down on their computers with miscellaneous stacks of passports in front of them. Every now and then, a name is called off and someone goes up to talk with them for a few minutes. There are a number of mirrored window offices around the perimiter of the room, as well as a central control room with mirrored windows (though the lights of the various computer screens are visible).
After about 5-10, a uniformed lady calls my name. I go over. She doesn’t have a desk. so we lean against a counter. She explains that either my name or my DOB had run a few bells, so they had to call back to the mothership to confirm I wasn’t an evil terroristic mastermind. I smile, amiably. She asks the same questions again, and asks for my SSN as further ID (oddly, she doesn’t ask for my Drivers License or any other ID).
I say this is probably the same hang-up that’s caused me problems getting ticketed at times. She picks up on that — has this happened to me before? Yeah, on the ticketing, I say, but usually if I have my middle initial on the reservation I don’t get caught up. She offers she can give me an address I can write to to find out what the hang-up is on my name. I thank her politely.
“This could be five minutes or thirty minutes depending on how long it takes for the mothership to call back. That’s fine, I say, explaining I have some leeway with my layover. She suggest I get my bags from the carousel in the meantime, which is nice. Of course, I still won’t be able to go anywhere (since she’s keeping my passport), but it will save me some time. She has another officer card me through a locked door over to the carousels.
There is so much luggage on our flight that they are using two carousels, and it still takes another 20-odd minutes of continuous luggage disgorging for my bag to finally appear. I’m waiting, I’ll confess, for a heavy hand on my shoulder or shouting ICE CBP agents from the other room to come over wondering why it’s taking me so long.
I head back over, am carded through, and sit down. My officer is nowhere to be seen, but about 10 minutes later comes through, spots me, and says they haven’t called back. I read for a while.
After a bit, nearly everyone who was also pulled out of the lines for my plane has been processed. Most of the agents I hear are formal, even a bit curt. (Hint: If you say something twice, each time getting a puzzled look or “huh?” from someone who isn’t a native speaker, you might consider either rephrasing or speaking more clearly, not getting peeved).
Eventually, my officer reappears, calls my name, says that she had finally called back again, since it wasn’t “right” to keep me sitting there for an hour. I remind her about the address she was going to give me, and she thanks me for remembering it.
She gives me a form to send to ICE (well, actually to CBP; that’s who I’ve actually been dealing with, though I’m still not sure I understand the distinction between them). The letter is basically a FOIA request for personal info in the CBP database for “individuals who experienced repeated difficulties clearing CBP Baggage Control (such as repeated examinations) upon entering the US after foreign travels.” She informs me this won’t necessarily keep me from being pulled aside for secondary inspection, but that having it to show CBP will expedite getting through. Better than nothing, I suppose, and if it saves me on a future layover that’s tighter, that’s all to the good.
She then walks me to a side-door that bypasses Customs, as I’d been there for so long, which was extraordinarily nice of her (not much of a threat, I suppose, as I’d been cleared as a Good Person and most likely wouldn’t have my luggage riffled through anyway, but she could still have been a hard-ass about it). She offered her thanks and good-bye, which I returned.
At the risk of causing her problems for being a helpful, positive, good-impression-giving agent of US Customs and Border Protection, my thanks to Officer Del Bosque for her professionalism and friendliness, and for making what could have been an intensely annoying episode much less so. If DHS had more like her, people would have a lot fewer bitches about them.