Timeline for Why was this border agent rude to me?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
15 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 5, 2021 at 22:48 | comment | added | David Waterworth | Totally agree with the comments, if you're a non-American (not even a minority, I'm Anglo-Australian) the border officials are extremely rude and aggressive. They make it very clear they don't want you in "their" country. I've also found since we (Australia) renamed ours to "Border Force", they've gone down the same track, from being polite and welcoming to seeing themselves as bouncers | |
| Oct 5, 2021 at 5:46 | comment | added | jwenting | @WoJ and in Russia that's mostly a procedural leftover from the Soviet days, in the US the way the border agents treat you feels so much more personally negative. | |
| Oct 4, 2021 at 20:24 | comment | added | Dan | I think any kind of generalisations are probably hard to pin down and depend on a lot of factors. Canada have always been exceedingly polite with me, and the US remarkably rude. Both the USSR (as was) and UK seemed to have a mixture of extreme boredom and anxiety that always makes me feel sorry for the officials. But I'd not be surprised if others have experienced the opposite. (I'm British, fwiw). | |
| S Oct 4, 2021 at 20:17 | history | suggested | JDługosz | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
dollar sign goes to the left
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| Oct 4, 2021 at 16:55 | comment | added | WoJ | Especially if you are visiting outside the United States, (...) where people are unusually polite. Have you actually entered the US as a non-American? This is a horrible, horrible experience. I entered the US maybe 70 times, both on business travel and on vacation. 70% of the time the experience was horrible - we were treated like cattle. The other country where it was similar is Russia. So no - the US borders are far from friendly, polite, whatever. For the record, I am mid-age, white, French - so not the stereotypical immigrant trying to get through the border. | |
| Oct 4, 2021 at 16:40 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Oct 4, 2021 at 20:17 | |||||
| Oct 4, 2021 at 13:16 | comment | added | Darrel Hoffman | @TidyDev May depend on which border. The officials on the US-Canada border are probably a lot friendlier than the ones on the US-Mexico border, for example. And in general, the smaller, less-busy border crossings are friendlier than the big ones. Can't speak for the UK, but I imagine there's similar variations depending on where you enter. | |
| Oct 4, 2021 at 12:06 | comment | added | hjf | the poster is most likely thinking of "politeness" as a "native english" politeness which includes excessive and redundant "sorry" and "thank you". often native english speakers visit countries where "sorry" and "thank you" aren't part of every single phrase and see this as lack of politeness. | |
| Oct 4, 2021 at 9:45 | comment | added | RedSonja | After decades of travel all over the world, I can state that US border agents are the most impolite. They start with the assumption that you are trying to immigrate illegally, and that everything you say is trying to cover that up, and take it from there. Also (as a Brit) their English is often impossible to understand. | |
| Oct 4, 2021 at 4:25 | comment | added | Dawood ibn Kareem | Never been to UK. But I have found American and Canadian border agents and customs officers to be unusually impolite. | |
| Oct 4, 2021 at 2:35 | comment | added | TidyDev | I disagree that United States, Canada and the United Kingdom border agents are unusually polite. I've encountered rude agents at the border of two of those countries, but also polite ones. Much like I've encountered a mix of rude and polite agents at many other countries. | |
| Oct 3, 2021 at 15:45 | comment | added | Willeke♦ | The most unfriendly border officials I have ever seen were in the USA, and I have heard that from other people as well. Expect it at all borders. | |
| Oct 3, 2021 at 14:59 | comment | added | Clockwork | I remember a colleague telling me about his vacation trip to the United States, 5 years ago. Because his understanding of English wasn't so good and he made a mistake in the questionnaire, he was brought to an office to be interrogated by a cowboy looking officer with sunglasses, who pressured him so much he nearly cried. He was eventually helped by another worker who helped him by translating into English what he was trying to explain. Only then did the officer greet him politely. | |
| S Oct 3, 2021 at 14:52 | review | First answers | |||
| Oct 3, 2021 at 16:21 | |||||
| S Oct 3, 2021 at 14:52 | history | answered | LUser | CC BY-SA 4.0 |