Border Crossing

[jiggster]

Has anyone or anyone with a group member with DUI found crossing the border easier with the new regulation?

[Jball]

The short answer is yes. My group went across 2 weeks ago. We are all in our early 30's and pretty clean cut guys. When we first showed our passports the border crossing agent asked us all the normal questions. Who are you, where are you coming from, where are you going, how long, how do you know each other, are you bringing any illegal items across, etc.

After about 3 min she then asked if any of us had been to Canada. Most of us had been to Canada but it had been many years (since we were kids). We all answered her questions truthfully and she then instructed us to pull ahead and go instead to talk to immigration. Once inside we were interviewed by another agent who asked us the almost the exact same questions, but this time a little more serious. He then asked us for our drivers licenses. We were instructed to sit down and wait for immigration to run our backgrounds.

After about 20 nervous min of waiting they called two of my friends in the group back to an interviewing table where the immigration agent had their backgrounds pulled up. My one friend had a marijuana possession charge from when he was 18 years old (more than 12 years ago) and my other buddy had a recent refusal to blow (4 years ago). They were both interviewed and asked to explain the charge and the outcome. Since my friends possession charge was from more than 10 years ago they just let him go and "deemed him admissible".

My other friend with the dui had a get out of jail free card. Basically, under missouri court records his case shows up as "dismissed". All he did was show immigration the case as dismissed and she let him go. I think he got lucky because his case wasn't really dismissed. He pulled the dismissal charge off the internet on his iphone. I should also point out that my friend mentioned that our outfitter had convinced us to attempt to cross given the new leniency on duis.

I would like to make another interesting point though. There was a guy in front of me who had a dui and i overheard the conversation with immigration. It seemed his charges were never dismissed and they made him fill out a crap load of paperwork and possibly pay a fine. I don't know if they let him through or not since we left while he was still being processed.

The final point to this story is that the immigration officer who interviewed us did everything they could to let us pass through. She was polite and seemed to be act like everything was no big deal and that we are fine. I don't know if we just got lucky and she liked us, or if they treat everyone that way now. We made a point to dress nice and look like clean cut guys (not sure if this helped)

Once we were in everything was great- fishing was fantastic and the outfitter was top notch. Crossing back into the us was a breeze, only took 5 min.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

[Jahloaf]

My buddy has 3 convictions, the most recent was around 10 years ago. We have never been stopped or questioned ,,,go figure

Originally Posted by Jball

The short answer is yes. My group went across 2 weeks ago. We are all in our early 30's and pretty clean cut guys. When we first showed our passports the border crossing agent asked us all the normal questions. Who are you, where are you coming from, where are you going, how long, how do you know each other, are you bringing any illegal items across, etc.

After about 3 min she then asked if any of us had been to Canada. Most of us had been to Canada but it had been many years (since we were kids). We all answered her questions truthfully and she then instructed us to pull ahead and go instead to talk to immigration. Once inside we were interviewed by another agent who asked us the almost the exact same questions, but this time a little more serious. He then asked us for our drivers licenses. We were instructed to sit down and wait for immigration to run our backgrounds.

After about 20 nervous min of waiting they called two of my friends in the group back to an interviewing table where the immigration agent had their backgrounds pulled up. My one friend had a marijuana possession charge from when he was 18 years old (more than 12 years ago) and my other buddy had a recent refusal to blow (4 years ago). They were both interviewed and asked to explain the charge and the outcome. Since my friends possession charge was from more than 10 years ago they just let him go and "deemed him admissible".

My other friend with the dui had a get out of jail free card. Basically, under missouri court records his case shows up as "dismissed". All he did was show immigration the case as dismissed and she let him go. I think he got lucky because his case wasn't really dismissed. He pulled the dismissal charge off the internet on his iphone. I should also point out that my friend mentioned that our outfitter had convinced us to attempt to cross given the new leniency on duis.

I would like to make another interesting point though. There was a guy in front of me who had a dui and i overheard the conversation with immigration. It seemed his charges were never dismissed and they made him fill out a crap load of paperwork and possibly pay a fine. I don't know if they let him through or not since we left while he was still being processed.

The final point to this story is that the immigration officer who interviewed us did everything they could to let us pass through. She was polite and seemed to be act like everything was no big deal and that we are fine. I don't know if we just got lucky and she liked us, or if they treat everyone that way now. We made a point to dress nice and look like clean cut guys (not sure if this helped)

Once we were in everything was great- fishing was fantastic and the outfitter was top notch. Crossing back into the us was a breeze, only took 5 min.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

...did you use?