Yes to all of this. I always rehearse what I'm going to say entering any country legally. They will grind you to find inconsistencies and sometimes you just say honest mistakes that will take you to a second round of interrogation.
For example: after a series of tough questions, the border was just about to stamp my passport, he held the stamp in the air and then asked "have you been in the US before"? And I flustered, because I said no, but I corrected myself because I had crossed the border at Niagara Falls for a day trip. I explained this to the agent which granted me an extra round of questioning.
But I felt most offended when I went to Canada (I'm a Canadian citizen and I hadn't been there in years) and the agent asked me what was my reason for going to Canada. As if I needed an excuse.
You don't. Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms means that, as a Canadian citizen, you don't need to explain why you are travelling within, leaving or re-entering Canada. Not only that, but that section cannot be overwritten by the notwithstanding clause.
You do have to provide a basic customs declaration though.
Good advice. I experienced the same thing when coming into Canada recently as a non-Canadian. The agent asked me if I had been to Canada before and I said know.
He then found a stamp on my passport (which was only there because I got a connecting flight to Chicago from Toronto - I never left the airport) I got another round of questions and even further questioning by a second immigration officer.
Granted, I am staying for almost the maximum time allowed without a visa (6 months) but such a minor slip-up can lead to a lot of extra questions and if you slip-up on them you could be on your way home. It's always good to know what you are going to say before you reach the desk, at least as much as possible.
I spent about 3 hours in Canada Immigration on my first trip to Canada, I now live here. IMO Toronto Pearson's border control are the worst I've ever experienced.
I made the honest mistake of being honest. I was working as an electrician for my fathers company, which meant I had a plenty of money and as much holiday time as I wanted (I declared I was taking 2 weeks, and the officer acted like this was a lot).
My second mistake was being nervous. I came from the UK where our police, even at the border, are professional, courteous and aren't carrying handguns. The Canadian border officer was extremely rude (In dealing with 5 female officers and 4 male officers I found the male ones are the only professional and courteous officers employed by CBP).
After being questioned for an hour I was taken to get my bags searched. The male officer doing the searching was extremely polite and professional. He opened my suitcase (for a very messy person, my luggage is always meticulously packed to maximize space) and automatically adopted "We're not going to find anything here" mode, like you visibly saw the guy relax and he started chatting about the books I'd brought with me (one was a manga that he bought his kid).
I then got questioned further, and taken back to the immigration desk and asked to wait. This is when I overheard another male officer say "He's got nothing, you should have known that in the first five minutes. Just let him go." So she asked for the contact information, accused me of them being false when they didn't immediately answer (noisy terminal and 2 hours waiting). I asked if I could text them, and got grilled for her accusing me of keeping my phone on. I basically threw my phone over the desk at her and said "No it's been turned off for the past ten hours!" Then her attitude changed.
Since then I've rehearsed everything I've said. Act pissed off and say as little as possible. When I get to the person who checks my claims I say, sounding extremely pissed off "Hey, how are you?" I take the same policy whenever I get sent to the actual officers (it happens way to frequently, I have no clue why, apparently being completely white bread I look like a major terrorist threat - actually with my knowledge of chemistry and physics I'm probably a bigger risk than any of the guys who hijacked the planes on 9/11 as I actually know how to make a nuclear bomb - probably a very, very dirty bomb - and explosives).
I was detained for several hours at the Montreal airport trying to enter Canada. The immigration officer at one point started yelling at me about Wal-Mart and how Canada isn't like Wal-Mart and the workers in Canada have rights! None of which had anything to do with me. I assume she was having a bad day and decided to take it out on the first American she came across.
She began insisting that I pay $1000 cash to enter the country with my laptop and printer. I refused to give her cash but offered to pay with a credit card. That got me detained for another hour, sitting alone locked in a room.
Finally she brought someone else out that wasn't irrationally mad at me and she charged my credit card $250. The entire thing was surreal.
Had the same experience in Europe. I'm Austrian citizen, but live in the US. During my last flight back to Austria (via Amsterdam), the border-agent in Amsterdam asked me quite in detail about why I'm entering the European Union. Wonder what would have happened if I had refused to answer.
From my experience, that seems to be the policy in Amsterdam. I am en EU citizen, but live in the Netherlands. If I fly to the US I can reliably expect lengthy and silly questions. Example:
Agent: why did you come the Netherlands six years ago?
Me: to study
A: where's your student id?
M: that was six years ago...
Cool. A random stranger asks you an incredible amount of horribly silly questions in an aggressive/bored/annoyed tone and they expect your reaction to be something else than "WTF? Leave me alone." If this really were about your reaction to questions the staff at border stations would be trained to look for more than "has a beard, looks around nervously" and the questions would be tailored to actually invoke some observable reaction.
Have you had training in what questions to ask in order to properly gauge a person's reaction to said question to determine the likelihood of that person to commit a crime or other undesirable act?
I would imagine in most cases the "WTF? Leave me alone." response would not mark you as anything other than a law-abiding citizen that's just annoyed with the process. They ask the horribly silly questions for a reason. Well, most of the time, sometimes you just get someone who's having a bad day or maybe just an overall jerk high on abusing his authority.
I think tintin is right - your complaint is that it's not effective, which is also probably true. But they just want to get you talking, and your current plans are an easy topic that at least are relevant.
As long as you have a EU (Schengen) passport, another EU (Schengen) member state can only deny your entry if its authorities can prove that you pose a "genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat". The burden of proof is on them. It's very likely that even if you have refused to answer eventually the border control officer would have granted you entry.
"genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat". Reading: they can stop anyone for any reason anytime at any place. EU is not much better than US. I hold Polish, German and US citizenships. Europe is actually worse because they think that they treat people better when in reality they are much worse it just doesn't get as much attention because it is not US.
Funny, I'm an American working in the EU and my experience has been loads better than when I go back to the US. Growing up in the places I have you learn to say as little as possible to authorities (ie, don't give too much rope to hang yourself).
In every country I've visited it's known your flight number, know your hotel address, know your return date, and if anyone asks, you are just visiting. Getting into specifics just invites more and more questions.
> Growing up in the places I have you learn to say as little as possible to authorities (ie, don't give too much rope to hang yourself)
It's very true. There's a reason that, when your Miranda rights are read upon a rest, they say "...anything you say can and will be used against you.."
I'll leave it up to the viewer to judge this video with a defense attorney talking about why it's never good to talk to the Police: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wXkI4t7nuc
How do you have german citizenship and two others at the same time? I thought germany was a one citizenship state. Or is it in practice that you can avoid that rule fairly easily?
In some country you are given the nationality of your father, in germany it is the mother and in the US it is the country. My brother has three nationalities because of that. I have two but not the US nationality.
There are now also agreements between some european countries that you don't have to drop your previous nationality when you adopt a new nationality. So I should get three nationalities in a few months.
For example: after a series of tough questions, the border was just about to stamp my passport, he held the stamp in the air and then asked "have you been in the US before"? And I flustered, because I said no, but I corrected myself because I had crossed the border at Niagara Falls for a day trip. I explained this to the agent which granted me an extra round of questioning.
But I felt most offended when I went to Canada (I'm a Canadian citizen and I hadn't been there in years) and the agent asked me what was my reason for going to Canada. As if I needed an excuse.