I love spending time with the people who protect our borders. The way they work as a fully integrated unit with the rest of our government is seamless. Today I had to bring one of our broken vehicles out of Mexico on our trailer. This process is never much fun. It involves sitting in the regular border line waiting (for what can be hours) to cross rather than going through the SENTRI lanes. The process usually goes something like this.
Wait in line.
Get to the booth, show registrations for all vehicles involved, explaining why you’re towing the vehicle and where you’re coming from.
Wait in line.
Get sent to secondary inspection for further review.
Wait in line, but only after being yelled at for not waiting in the right spot. This is after being ignored for about 10 minutes. After doing this for years, I’ve concluded that the only way to get anyone’s attention, and find the spot they want you to wait in, is to first, wait in the wrong spot.
After more waiting and ignoring, the same questions are repeated, and the same papers are inspected.
Wait some more until eventually they tell you to go ahead.
Today I had an especially enjoyable exchange with the first U.S. officer, who’s command of the english language was marginal at best.
Officer: Registration and ID please sir.
Me: Ok, here they are.
Officer: This is a copy of the registration, I need to see the original
Me: I don’t have the original.
Officer: Sir, I need to see the original registration.
Me: I don’t have the original, we keep that in a safe in the office.
Officer: Sir, you’re not understanding me, I need to see the original registration.
Me: OK, but I don’t have the original. We keep that in a safe at the office. The DMV (not said aloud,’a part of the US government) says you don’t need to carry the original, a copy is fine. It says that right here on our copy of the original.
Officer: Sir, I don’t think you’re hearing me. I need to see the original
Me: I hear what you’re saying, “I want to see the original”. What I am saying is, “I DON’T HAVE THE ORIGINAL, the U.S. government says I’m not required to carry the original. I have a copy”.
Officer: I don’t think you understand, do you. “I..NEED…TO…SEE…THE…ORIGINAL” (insert charade like sign language)
At this point I said once again that I don’t have it and just looked away. He shook his head and said “Ok, you need to go to secondary”.
I enter secondary, pause to look for further direction and get yelled at for not waiting in the correct space, which is incidentally, never the same place.
He looks at my passport and registrations and tells me to go ahead and have a nice day.
I feel safe and protected, knowing that our borders are secured with such attention to detail.
