What are my rights at a US border crossing?

As a Canadian citizen, resident in Canada, what are my rights approaching a land border crossing with the United States, say by motor car?

We’ve all heard the horror stories of people held up for hours because the border guards had some reason to suspect trouble, or simply took fancy to very thouroughly inspect the people or their vehicle. But what if the guard says “Please pull into this little garage.”, and threatens a strip search? Am I allowed to say “No thanks, I’ll just not come into your country.”?

Having arrived at the border checkpoint, can I decide I’d rather turn back than follow their instructions?

Oh, damn good question. Let me also ask, if I don’t want to let the State of Arizona confiscate my more than one litre of tequila, can I say no, thanks, I’ll go back to Mexico and ship it FedEx? No, really, I’m serious.

You can find out quite a bit of info on the web, you know:

U.S. Customs and Border Protection - http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/home.xml

Canada Border Services Agency - http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/menu-e.html

You have none.

Cite? Isn’t it the case that all they can do is refuse entry into the United States. Certainly US Border Patrol agents are not allowed to murder, rape, or assault people that they aren’t going to admit into the United States. They do have the power to take into custody anyone who is wanted on an outstanding warrant.

Yes, you can. This happened to my mother once. They said, you can go back and try to return or sell it, or we’ll just pour it down the drain right now, and let you go. She said, “Drain.” No one is going to go through that line at San Ysidro for an extra bottle of tequila.

They also found fire crackers. They just took those, too.

But they didn’t search anybody.

US citizen here, but perhaps this will apply anyway. On at least two occasions when re-entering the USA, we had items that were not permitted. On one occasion it was produce we’d bought at a Canadian supermarket, on the other it was some unroasted nuts we’d bought. In the former case (which was many years ago, incidentally), we simply laughed and handed over the lemons. “Oh well,” hubby joked. “You can use them in your tea.” The guard was offended. “Certainly not! They will be destroyed.” In the case of the nuts, we ate some, gave some away and threw out the rest. No real problem in either case.

If they find someone in your trunk, they’ll detain you. Also if you have suspicious weapons, things like that. About ten years ago they caught a guy crossing from Canada who had a big bomb in his car, who was planning to blow up LAX.

They can search you, too, without any reason. But I don’t think they can strip search you unless they have good cause.

I think you can choose to not enter or be searched while in the “DMZ” of border crossing.

On day, on a whim, my girlfriend and I decided to drive to Vancouver BC for coffee. I forgot there was a handgun in the back of the car until the Canadian border guard asked if I had any weapons.

I told him I forgot I had one and we didn’t plan our trip. I followed up on how stupid I was because I know I’m not allowed to bring it into Canada.

He said there is a place in the US side that has gun lockers for rent if we want to leave it there and come over to BC. He did say sometimes hunters head up to Canada from the US and don’t realize they can’t take their rifles or handguns.

He pointed us to the turn around and pretty much said “When come back, leave gun”.

I don’t remember if we went through the US border station or not. I don’t think we did.

We ended up gun-lockering the gun and stayed in BC for a couple days (it was a big cup of coffee). For some reason I expected my car to be flagged and searched going back up, but it wasn’t.

A greasy mohawk will also get you stopped.

They might have stopped him because of the molesterstache on his upper lip.

I’m not joking when I say “none.” The US government’s position is that if you are deemed inadmissible, you have no constitutional rights, even if taken to a US prison.

You can be detained without charge, denied the right to consult a lawyer, and denied food and sleep. At most, you might have the right to not suffer gross physical abuse, however, the US government’s position is also that anything less than pain consistent with major organ failure or death is not torture, that they have the right to send you to other countries for interogation, and that they can not be held responsible for your being tortured in such countries to which they send you.

A lot of this is coming out in the trial concerning the torture of Canadian Maher Arar: http://www.cbc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/email.cgi?category=World&story=/news/2005/08/11/arar-lawsuit050811