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Comment by outlace | Hacker News Reader

I came back to the states into LAX from a trip to China a few months ago and one of the CBP agents was yelling and harassing many of the visiting Chinese people who did not speak English because they were not following directions. It was one of the biggest power trips I’ve seen. I felt absolutely terrible for those people and ashamed that this was their introduction to America.

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I have seen a pair of TSA agents at an airport screaming at a disabled woman in a wheelchair, because she didn't move fast enough for them. I've also seen CBP agents randomly harassing people at the Canadian border crossing.

And I've seen a guard in the American consulate in Vancouver berate people who were queued up for their visa interviews, early in the morning. The guy opened the door, said "Good morning!", and then stood there and waited. When nobody responded, he proceeded to tell the crowd that they should "get used to how we do this in America" before they get inside, and basically wouldn't let anyone in until the crowd chorused "Good morning" back in response.

My overall conclusion is that either the hiring practices for all these agencies are intentionally skewed towards that kind of employees, or that the lack of any meaningful responsibility quickly turns people into power-tripping assholes. Perhaps it's both.

I witness the same thing every time I land in LAX and it fucking infuriates me. Blatantly racist "talk slow and in a bad chinese accent" style screaming at confused as hell Chinese tourists.

Every time I see it I wait for them to get to that hallway between Immigration and Customs and apologize to them, try to assure them that the guy that did it is an asshole, but I'm only there like twice a year... lots of people getting a really shitty first impression of America after their 13 hour exhausting flight.

That sounds awful.

As an LA resident, I've long held a more general shame that LAX is such a poor airport in general. The whole experience of arriving, taxiing for 20 minutes, waiting an eternity for checked baggage in 1960s civic utilitarian architecture, and then standing on a concrete island outside amidst an armada of cars, trucks, and buses with squealing disc brakes and clouds of exhaust... LAX is an embarrassment to Los Angeles.

Now I hear that our CBP is also irrationally angry and offensive. Yuck.

You could write film scripts with those kinds of descriptions :)

(nearly?) Every time I've entered the US I've seen basically this. It's gross.

The last time a guy was screaming "do you want to go to prison for 40 years!? do you!?!?!" to a confused and scared looking chinese lady, presumably because she didn't declare a fucking durian or something.

The yelling is unprofessional and doesn't represent us well as a country. However, the import of undeclared fruits and vegetables can do damage to our ecosystem if they are of a type that represents a danger, or carries certain insects.

Also, and I know humor is generally frowned on here, but yelling in the presence of durian is understandable at a certain level, if you've ever tasted or smelled it.

ha ha, yeah. In fact, it is illegal to carry durian in a lot of public places in Singapore like buses, trains and even hotels

But... durian is delicious! It really is! It must be like cilantro, where some taste... the sweet, and others taste the sewer. I get to taste the sweet sweet non-sewer durian.

Trust me, I'm from NZ, I get the idea behind the declaration of fruits etc.

I've never heard anyone on more of a shitheaded mean-spirited power trip than every American customs person I've stood near.

Lol I don't think you need to declare a durian

https://customs.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3619/~/...

> Every fruit or vegetable must be declared to a CBP Agriculture Specialist or CBP Officer and must be presented for inspection - regardless of its admissibility status. Fresh fruits and vegetables need to be clean and may be prohibited if they have insects or diseases.

Additionally, durian from China is not allowed to be imported.

https://epermits.aphis.usda.gov/manual/index.cfm?NEW=1&COMMO...

Sorry, my (poorly put) attempt at a joke was that durians declare themselves.

They declare themselves quite well.

Last time I returned to the US from Brazil, the entire experience through immigration and customs was one angry loud yelling lady after another. Nobody was even doing anything wrong or making mistakes. It was just their standard way of talking to people. Totally not who you would want welcoming someone to our country.

I’ve had a very embarrassing experience when I was moving out of the states and packed my carry on with random stuff - as you’d expect someone moving might pack. The scanner lady made jokes at my expense while she dug through my carry on. The people in front and behind me were visibly as embarrassed as I was. Those people need to undergo sensitivity training.

When I entered the US as an new immigrant at LAX the immigration agent there was almost comically rude and aggressive with me. He keep on shouting at me, telling me to do things but not explaining what that entailed, he even refused to lend me a pen when he told me to sign the paper. I was just some random person in line and had never seen him before.

I don't know what his problem was but I didn't care. I was going to get what I needed regardless.

It's a psyops game. The Nazis, the police, drill instructors and domestic abusers all play it. People are more pliable when you instill panic and confusion in them. Yell at them, make them think they're doing everything wrong and that they could get shot at any moment and they'll generally fixate on compliance.

I had the same experience. There was an Indian lady in front of me, she got harassed mercilessly. I think these personnel need to be shown consequences.

Every time you fly into JFK from overseas, you have people screeching at you not to take out your phones or take photos until you're through immigration. There's no sane reason for this, it's pure paranoia and need for control.

Meanwhile in Europe, the very instant the plane touches down and finishes braking: ok everybody, you can switch on your phones now.

Then, there's Australia, which puts the "use our iOS/Android app to get through quickly" sign right next to the "no cell phones here" one.

What, you can't run the code in your head from the printout of the APK?

Throwaway account.

I can confirm the whole yelling thing at LAX.

I am a US citizen and travel frequently. A few years ago I returned from a trip at LAX, sent to the secondary inspection area, and yelled at by the CBP officer while going through my items. Then came the full media search, which took a few hours.

What made things worse is I am a co-founder of a VPN company and had with me source code, client data, encrypted backups, medical records, and other sensitive data on my phone, laptop and USB drives which I assume they inspected (and copied?) during their search.

I have since passed through LAX on many occasion without further searches, however it was a shocking experience that causes me a great deal of stress to this day whenever I think about going though that airport.

Good thing you used a throwaway because I can’t believe you didn’t refuse consent to the search if you’re an American citizen (I have). I wouldn’t want to trust your company with my info.

Could you tell us what happened when you refused consent at the border?

This was at ORD, which I've found (perhaps it's just one of the benefits of being in the midwest) to be a very friendly port of arrival for international flights. I was asked aside for an "interview" upon landing (I'm a US citizen living in Chicago) by two agents, who asked if I had a phone and then asked me to give it to them. I politely but firmly said "I do, but I'm not comfortable unlocking it." They asked why, and a I responded that it's highly personal and that I would be happy to help them in any other way, but I believed I would be within my rights to refuse them access. They didn't push it further, but I was detained for three hours or so while they asked pointless questions they already had the answers to. My phone didn't leave my person during that time, though at one point they asked for some contact information that I said was only available on my phone, which I unlocked in front of them, retrieved, then pointedly relocked and put away.

>I felt absolutely terrible for those people and ashamed that this was their introduction to America.

You are not your government. "Every citizen has the duty to protect their country from their government"

Every society has the government it deserves.

I say this as someone from a country that has had several decades of terrible governments.

I totally agree. But I have to say a large portion of the people that elect the government probably has never traveled abroad.

"People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people."

Yep, see this every time. Do they have an accent? If yes, limitless permission to act like the worst asshole in the world and treat people like animals. Then you have to step up next to them in line and act like you didn’t see any of that just now. As a white male with no accent I just get the friendly welcome back, but what I really want to do to that person would put me in prison.

Reading the replies to this post gives me the impression that this is a major problem, but I haven't witnessed anything like it in the half dozen or so times returning from an overseas trip in the last couple of years. It's not that all the agents were particularly friendly, though some were. Some were indeed rude, but not close to this level.

Are you a US Citizen? That might be the reason. I visited US multiple times in the last few years, mostly on the east coast or Chicago, and the CBP agents were okay. The last time I landed at SEA, the agent there was unbelievably rude, all because I forgot to sign some document. All he kept saying was the document was invalid without explaining why, and then asking if I can read English. Asshole. I was tempted to make a complaint later, but I was running late.

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