Randomly at the border
Amongst the perils of travelling, there is always the moment of entry. You hand your passport to somebody in a uniform. They look at your passport. They look at you. You briefly wonder if you look like yourself after thirteen hours on an airplane.
Probably not.
In countries where they do not speak English, this is then followed by the ritual stamping (and return) of the passport.
In countries where they do speak English, they ask questions. Perhaps this is because I’m an English speaker, so the questions will be understood. Or maybe only English-speaking countries bother with further examination. Regardless, British, Canadian and American border agents always ask me questions.
For the most part, they’re the same.
Americans ask why I’m there, and how long I’m staying.
Canadians are confused as to whether I’m visiting or returning. (Both, of course. I am returning for a visit).
Then there are the British. They ask questions that make little or no sense. After a red eye flight, with no sleep for nearly twenty-four hours, I tend to stumble over these questions. It is surprising that it has never delayed my re-entry.
On my first entry, they asked me a question about my visa application. I figured it was normal. They continued asking this question repeatedly over the next year. I was sure it was normal. In fact, one agent told me that there was a note on my file, which required them to ask this question. He took it off, and since then the questions have been more creative.
Q: “Do you still work in the same place?”
A: “…”
This one of the more common ones asked at the UK border. My visa is not tied to any particular job, so the answer does not actually matter. But the problem is that it doesn’t make sense. I work at the same job as I did when I left the country last. I work at the same job as I did when I last applied for a visa extension. I do not work at the same job as I did for the previous visa extension. Nor do I work at the same job as I did when I first applied for a UK visa.
Timelines matter. And jetlagged individuals do not deal well with non-specific questions.
Q: Why are you a resident?
A: Because I live here.
One of the answers you need to give when entering the UK on a non-EU passport is how long you are planning to stay. I do not have an answer, so I write “Resident” on the card. The border agent did not seem happy at that response. Perhaps she thought I was being cheeky, but it’s either that or “because I have a permit”. And she was looking at the permit.
Q: What qualification do you have?
A: …
The border agent literally asked that. Singular. Qualification. I thought he meant visa, so I told him. No, qualification. I told him about my bachelor’s degree. Could I have given him my project management qualification instead? Change management? Work experience? I am qualified to enter the country by virtue of the visa. I have many qualifications when it comes to the workplace.
Q: Where are you coming from today?
This question is not just asked in the UK. It is asked everywhere. And it is the hardest question to answer. Ten hours on a plane … am I coming from Toronto? Montreal? Kuala Lumpur? Atlanta? It’s hard to remember.
And if you had a connection, you might choose your original point of departure, rather than the most recent. Then the border guard is confused — no planes from that location have arrived recently.
By far the worst question for the frequent traveler. You’re wandering through an airport, following the signs towards the exit. You’ve just left a tin can where you spent the last twelve hours or so. You haven’t slept. You smell. You just want to clean yourself and sleep.
Where are you coming from?
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Just a point clarification… the question “returning” or “visiting” is a little more important than simply “Both, of course. I’m returning for a visit.” They’re specific categories of traveler.
If you’re a returning resident, there are the issues of goods that you’re bringing with you, goods that are following, and taxes and exemptions related to same.
If you’re a resident of elsewhere and just visiting, it comes with a different set of questions (or the same set of questions, but with different ramifications).
I can only assume the issues you had with the Brits when you first had your visa (and for the year that followed) were because a toggle wasn’t toggled when they processed your visa entry (ie. when you returned with your visa for the first time). But I’ve no experience as a British border officer…
@martin – of course the distinction is important to the border guard. If it wasn’t, it would not be a common question.
However, I spent an hour to get to the airport, to wait three hours to board a plane, to spend close to nine hours on said plane in a cramped seat watching bad movies and eating bad food.
I hand the border guard a passport (Canadian) and a form (“just visiting” section filled).
The border guard asks a question that makes sense in border-guard-language, but not in normal-people-speak.
By simply doubling the length of the sentence: “I see you’re Canadian. Are you just returning for a visit?”, all misunderstanding would be dispelled. Instead, the way the question is always phrased is unclear. I am Canadian, so by definition, I am returning to Canada. Even if it is just to visit.
Non-border-guards do not use border guard terminology as their default. We might not even know it. And we certainly are not going to switch to it easily or automatically in hour fifteen of travel.
It is their job to ascertain which category we belong to. Asking the question properly would probably help.
I would figure that someone who travels frequently would be familiar with the questions. One of the things that people SELDOM do when they travel abroad (in general) is check the requirements for when they return. They take that stuff for granted. I’m not suggesting that you are like that, because you are an educated person of higher-than-average intelligence. But the vast majority of Canadians don’t even have their passports ready when they return to Canada, “We didn’t think we’d need them.”
The questioning is supposed to go from very general (broad category stuff) to specific stuff if the officer needs clarification before releasing the traveler.
It’s the border officer’s responsibility to provide you an opportunity to provide a complete declaration. In the event that he looks at your card and sends you for an examination without verifying the information ON the card, odds are pretty good you’ll get off on a technicality if you have some prohibited item or are found to not be a legitimate traveler.
Though I’m not a border guard and never have been, I’ve worked at the border (we don’t guard the border) and have, myself, always asked the longer version of the question because I know that people don’t follow the same jargon in every situation.
Consider, though, that this fellow may have been asking that question of hundreds of travelers, nonstop, for 8.5-11.5 hours. Almost the duration of your trip (albeit, his experience with a less pleasurable goal). It’s not unexpected that sometimes he’ll slip into border-officer speak and start to take certain expectations for granted.
It is your obligation when crossing the border to identify which category you fall into. It is his job to verify that you are telling the truth/have identified yourself correctly. That’s the end of it — especially as you’re a Canadian citizen, because you have an unrestricted right to enter Canada.
I will conclude by saying that you are not *by definition* returning to Canada. It is fair to say that when you arrive at a BSO in a Canadian airport, having disembarked a plane, we can take for granted that you were abroad and are now back in Canada. In this context (and context is all important with regards to definitions), it’s important to determine whether you are returning or visiting.
Ultimately I was simply trying to clarify that first question — returning or visiting. Now I feel like I have to leap to the defense of an organisation my father worked for, as though the question is somehow unreasonable. The long and the short of it is that Border Services Officers (who, again, don’t guard the border) are there to facilitate travel across the border, under the Customs Act and IRPA, they’re not customer service representatives.
@martin
Thank you for the compliments on my education and intelligence. Let me tell you, it doesn’t feel that way after having my brain cells destroyed by Sandra Bullock in The Proposal and three episodes of Two and a Half Men.
And I always feel much more alert ten hours into a work day than I do when getting off a plane. Though, I suppose, that might not be the case for everybody.
As far as “returning”, I believe that the forms give two categories: visitors and residents. There is no problem differentiating the two — they are mutually exclusive categories.
I agree that the differentiation between visitors and residents is important and appropriate. I am not trying to deny that it is a question for which the border officer needs an answer.
What I do mean to do is question the means by which this is communicated. For people working jobs which appear to be largely about communication with people who are not at their best (intellectually speaking), I sometimes find the questions surprising. (Usually the UK ones … the Canadian ones are almost always the same.)
The manner in which questions are phrased almost always seem to require effort to understand, even when they are asking me very simple questions. Perhaps this is on purpose?
Throughout your defense of border officers, you put yourself in their shoes — sympathy for those who must ask the same questions for 10 hours straight (which is, I might add, their job), and taking a border officer viewpoint of the whole thing.
When I’m doing my job, and speak to somebody using jargon internal to my team, my company, or my industry, thereby confusing that person, I take myself to task for it. After all, I am being paid to do this, and part of my job is to communicate such that I am understood.
I do not see anything different for a border guard. Whether it’s hour 1 or hour 12, this is their job, they are being paid for it.
The ex-pat going home for a visit is a traveler. When talking about this trip, it is likely termed “going home” by more than a few people — relatives, friends, co-workers — even if “home” is now a flat in England. “Going home” and “returning to Canada” are largely synonymous.
So in the border-officer and ex-pat languages, “returning” has a different meaning. As the paid professional who deals with this sort of thing day-in and day-out, I would argue that the border officer is the one who is both best positioned and has a professional responsibility to break through that predictable miscommunication.
Yes, I can turn on my brain, figure it out on the officer’s behalf based upon the context, and give them the answer they’re looking for.
I do not understand why I should have to, however — particularly when there are dozens of ways in which to get to the answer without the confusing “returning” bit. I think the frequency of such poorly phrased questions is a failing, and a too-common one at that. (Although it is not ubiquitous to the experience. I am prone to exaggeration.)
The border officer’s job is to communicate with travelers in order to ascertain the completeness and accuracy of their declarations, and ensure that they are permitted to enter the country. It’s all about communication.
Is it really too much to ask that they do so clearly?
@martin
Also: I love to argue these points. Can’t you tell?
What it comes back to, for me, is that I find the question “are you returning/visiting” to be perfectly clear. At the same time, my own methods when I asked the questions were to phrase it, “you are a Canadian citizen? where do you live, what’s your status there, etc.” Some other officers would handle the question by simply stating it and having the traveler fill in the extra information or ask for clarification.
And the reason WHY you should have to turn on your brain to determine how to answer the question is because it is YOU who are crossing the border. The officer is there to ensure that the Customs Act and IRPA are, at the basic level, being maintained, and that you are who you claim to be. Moreover, it is you who must make the declaration for it to be the legal matter it is. The officer isn’t there to make the declaration for you.
It may come as a surprise, but there are times when people lie to border officers, for various reasons. Some or innocent enough (Husband and Mistress traveling across for dinner where the Wife won’t be), some are mildly illegal (this TeeVee was a grand cheaper in the States and will be cheaper still if I don’t pay duty/taxes to Canada), and some are downright criminal (I’ve prohibited items about my person).
The questioning is there to give the would-be smuggler a chance to slip up.
It is a nuisance, sometimes, to have to do all of the hassle stuff that surrounds traveling to other countries, but international travel is not an inalienable right. That border officers are paid to do it does not mean they are paid to do it cheerful manner (though, as a student BSO, I was cheerful all the time), or especially well paid to do it (it beat serving coffee to old people!), nor is it the point. Communication is about the interchange between people. Moving from obscurity to clarity.
If the whole exchange is “Yes … Yes … No … then the officer isn’t doing their job properly because they aren’t learning anything.
Exactly.
If the confusing questions are there to shake me up, why do they always amount to the same thing (resident or visitor)? Why are they not random, sometimes not even making sense, like the ones in the UK? Those really throw me for a loop.
If they are not there to shake me up, but to clarify, why is it not a question that is crystal clear?
Border agents might not be there to cheerfully serve people entering the country, but their tool is the question. While I expect them to be able to provoke both the wracking of the brain for information, clarifying information that’s on a form is a different kettle of fish.
I mean, if the form was not clear enough to get an appropriate answer, and the agent is trying to assist in the accurate completion of the form, should their question not be as clear as possible?
Sometimes they do ask questions to throw you for a loop, but that’s down to the individual agent. The question is there to clarify for the agent. How you, as the traveler, respond will alter the next line of questions. Evidently you haven’t been thought of as a threat (the vast majority of travelers, although probably dirty liars, are mostly harmless).
The form is meant to be clear enough for the appropriate answer, but most people filling out forms forgo accuracy for the sake of expedience (either in the filling out or the processing of said form).
I think we’re covering the same ground over and over, neither side budging. We argue the same thing about communication and vary at the point of the question. Plus, I’ve probably said a few things and gone back on them because I haven’t reread my own posts for consistency.