Many years ago my wife and son (both white) were detained by the US Immigration agents at the Toronto airport. They claimed that her Green Card was fake and locked them up for 2+ hours. They even refused to let my 3 yo US Citizen son to go to the bathroom so my wife had to bang on the door and tell them that he would go about his business right there. Finally they let them go when they almost missed their NYC flight.
Later we verified with INS that our Green Cards were fine. We called our senator’s office to help dealing with INS. This crap on the borders did not start on January 20, 2017.
@Tanbiko. And that happened on Canadian soil. Incredible.
I was hassled by a customs agent because I had nothing to declare after a trip to Canada. He just didn’t believe that I did not buy anything while I was in Canada.
That’s suspicious. Everybody brings back Cuban cigars 
Not a smoker. But I got grilled. “You mean to tell me you went to Butchart Gardens and didn’t buy any of the items in their gift shop?” “You went to Victoria and all those shops and bought nothing?” Sounds like the agent has a bias that all women are shopaholics.
Here’s another one:
Funny how many ‘mistaken’ detentions are taking place these days.
^^^ I don’t think these incidents are happening just recently. My brother in law was detained when traveling because his name was shared with a member of the IRA who was involved in a bombing…this was in 2006
@lje62 That is the TIDE terrorist identities database used to identify people who may have connections to terrorist groups. The database is notoriously unreliable as it sucks up many innocent people whose name may match or are close to known terrorists. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/25/terrorist-watch-list_n_5617599.html
My son-in-law, a Canadian citizen with Scottish ancestors, holding a TN visa and had been living in the US for 8 years, was detained for over 3 hours at JFK after a vacation from Europe 2 years ago. He was with my daughter and son both US citizens.
This is nothing new.
I just think that reporters are seeking out sensational news right now and newspapers are reporting everything that is negative.
For example, like the time I was going through airport security with one of my kids and the TSA agent scanned my backpack and indicated, very creatively and graphically, that he thought it might contain a very large dildo.
Five, almost six years ago we were held for “extra questions” by a Canadian border control agent because we were traveling with 3 school age children during the traditional school year. We were subject to several questions about our homeschooling, who was responsible for their education, did they authorize this trip… and then I had to listen to his tirade about how homeschooling was wrong and socially irresponsible - nothing I could do since he was holding all our passports at the time.
Oh my gosh @3scoutsmom!
Good Golly, droppededit. This smacks of “he must have looked a white lady in the eye” and “what length of skirt was she wearing” rationalization.
They have been given free reign to do this to anyone they want, no explanation, no retribution, with no oversight with anyone but themselves.
I accidentally carried my son’s knife in my carry-on onto a flight from Calif to Alabama. Probably my stuff wasn’t closely looked.
I’ve also seen people with names that are the same/similar to the “do not fly” list get taken off planes (and returned) or at least interrogated on the plane. This stuff has been going on for a long time. It’s not new.
Not new but still not good.
My kids are competitive fencers. In fencing you don’t refer to your implements as swords; they’re called “weapons”. My kids learned early on that when the TSA agent asks what’s in your bag, you just say “sporting equipment”. There are too many horror stories of delays when people innocently answered "weapons@.
Offensive BS.
Am I the only one who wants to know what really happened? All we’ve heard is from one side of the issue (the side that’s thinking about suing the government – our taxes). Only one story about this, from cbsnews.com, mentioned that he was detained because the CBP wanted to verify his passport and identity. OK, was there something wrong with his passport?
You can carry on fencing weapons? You can’t carry on lax sticks or golf clubs. They tried to change the rules a few years ago and the flight attendants had a fit and they remained banned from the cabins.
You have to check your fencing weapons. But once, on our way home from a World Cup in Madrid, my son forgot to put his “weapon repair kit” in his checked baggage but had it in his carry on backpack. When asked what it was his answer included the word “weapon” and things got serious very quickly. But once the confusion was cleared he was allowed to take it on with no problems at all, despite the fact that the tools involved realistically could cause a lot of mayhem.