Which side has meaner and less friendly border agents: USA or Canada?

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SteveN

I have had consistently more issues going into USA than coming back into Canada, but that may be because I am a Canadian citizen and the Canada Customs are being more lenient.

On the other hand, I have never had a "bad" experience there.

I had one US guard asking me what I was going to be doing in the States and I had to explain in detail what my job purpose was (I do tech support which I am not allowed to do in USA without a work visa, but I also occasionaly do pre-sales evaluations for customers, which is permitted)

Meanwhile, on the way back from a trip to Lake Placid, we had to declare half a Little Caesar's pizza and a pound of Jelly Belly's for the Canada Customs guard to be satisfied that our day trip was not bringing back all sorts of over-the-border shopping goodies!

I did have a friend from high school who went down there with three other friends. He jokingly said "hide the drugs" at US customs. They held them for 4 hours and tore the car apart, then said okay you can leave. My friends had to put their car back together and needless to say my "hide the drugs" friend was never invited on any cross-border trips again.

isotope2007

They can both be bad, I had a customs officer try to say my Drivers License was a credit card - yah okay - when entering the US. My friend was detained in immigration for 5 hours when entering Canada.

It depends on who you get, same as customs in airports, some are real sh*t heads. Had one female officer tell me I had to give her two empty lighter cases, silver dolphins that were fairly expensive - the other officer standing there, also female told her to "stop trying to steal things from people".

I have heard of people being held up for almost a whole day entering canada, and a sports team of 12 yr old girls from Saskatchewan who were denied entry into the US -

My friend who's daughter went missing in Las Vegas was denied entry to the US when she had an appointment with police in Las Vegas - because of a conviction 20 some years ago. When she asked to speak to a supervisor this b*tch called the police instead and tried to get them to arrest her, Said she was suspected of transporting drugs, its being dealt with by our various US and Canada governments now.

Seems to me there will be a little matter of making a false statement against someone and someone could lose her job over it.

Border guards, customs officers, immigration officers are just people, and both Canada and the US have their share of mean, unfriendly jerks

thatchickistoast

USA- we said we had sandwiches in the cooler and they asked us what kind... what did they think we had in there?

Explorer

I would say there is more attitude on the american side

heavenleigh_42

The U.S. ones are the worst. You can get good and bad on both but from my own experiences the U.S. was the worst !!

JuanB

They both are bad. But my worst experience was at the US border, and they are more consistently meaner. It was back in school, and he refused us entry into the US until we went and took some money out of the bank. But at this time of year, Canada hires a lot of summer people and they tend to be unprofessional. I had a hotshot wannabe power tripping unprofessional temp Canadian Customs Officer that comes in as my second worst experience. He asked me what I did for a living. And as I thought of how I could explain to this simpleton what I did for a living, he said "What? You don't know what you do?" The guy just constantly yakked out questions and never listened for answers. He just liked the sound of his own voice. Then third was a Canadian one that tripled the value of a bunch of memorabilia I had bought. I had to catch a connecting flight and he threatened to call in an appraiser which would take hours I didn't have. So I was forced to take his numbers and appeal it in writing later. I got back what he charged me, but it was a pain.

W H

Canada has the meaner ones

nbr660

Canada women border agents (some) are a nightmare & some of the US border agents aren't any fun either.

Marie

USA!! USA!! USA!! ALL THE WAY!!

We cross the border twice a month.

But I agree that the female Canadian agents are as a rule more snide than the male. Also, the the Canadians tend to be rougher at the major (expressway) crossings than at the minor crossings. At least from MontrÃ©al to New York or Vermont.

Tlfce

USA...definitley

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