Hi folks. Thank you for having me today for another interesting story. I want to share with you guys an experience I recently had the weekend of Eid this year. On the weekend of May 16th, my wife and I decided to visit the Peace of Arch as one of the activities of the celebration of our sixth anniversary in Blaine, Washington. The Peace of Arch for those who are not familiar, is the international bound between Canada and United States in Washington state.
We went to the resort hotel called Semiahmoo in Blaine on Saturday afternoon. We checked in and occupied our room. We (kids, wife and I) were exhausted after the two- and half-hour road trip. We had a couple of events to attend after a nap of about 2 hours.
The next day, we woke up around 11:00 am. We took the shower, and dressed up. The kids were excited and my wife too. I’m sorry that I can’t share the pictures for a matter of privacy. We jumped into the car, and we started our travel to the Peace of Arch. The day was sunny. People outside were enjoying the sun. Slowly, we were driving the road that leads to the Peace of Arch. After about 20 minutes of driving, there was a first roundabout, we took the second exit that goes to the 2nd street, then we took a second round about to follow the 2nd street again, and we saw a place where there was a lot of cars parked, and we were confused. We thought we were at the wrong place because we could not barely identify the Peace of Arch. The number of cars was meaning may be there was a special event and that we were not concerned about.
We decided to make a U-turn to come back behind and take another exit that was going to the freeway. That was the big mistake we made that would cost us about 2 hours of baby cries and angriness.
We were going on the highway. Suddenly, we just saw some US CBP (Custom and Border Protection) officers, and they were making us some hand signs to move forward. We noticed that we did not have our passports. I remember when we were leaving the house the day before, we wanted to take the passports, and we finally decided not to because we knew that we were not going out of the country.
Slowly, we were moving to the Canadian border. We were the only car in that direction. Everything was silent. When we reached the gate of the Canadian border, there was only one booth open. We moved toward the open booth, and the officer was kind. He asked us our documents. Technically, we were supposed to show him the passports. The situation was like we were going to Canada. I collected my wife driving license and mine, and I gave them to the officer, and he started to ask us some routine questions that they asked at the border. Where are you from? Where are you heading? Are you US citizen? and so on.
We answered all his questions, and we explained the situation we were facing to him. “We wanted to visit the Peace of Arch to celebrate our sixth wedding anniversary and for some reasons we took the wrong exit and we ended up here at the border.”. The officer understood. He registered our Ids, he explained to us that he did not know about visiting the “Peace of Arch” and that the US officers could help us with that. He asked two other Canadian officers to open the booth and let us make the U-turn to return to the US territory. This is where the real nightmare happened. If you reached this level of reading that means the story is interesting. If you want to know more, please just follow me.
We were done with the Canadian officers; we made the U-turn. We were now on the way to return to the US border gates. What you should notice with Uncle Sam is that, when you are leaving the US, it does not matter anything to Uncle Sam, but when you want to re-enter even if you made a mistake, then you will understand what Immigration means to Uncle Sam.
Slowly we moved forward to the open booth, and the first US CBP Officer asked us to move a little forward. I do not know if I’m the only one that feels that. Every time when I must face a US CBP officer, it seems like my heart rate rises for some unforeseen reason.
The officer was kind. He asked us our Ids. We were supposed to give him the passports, but we did not have the passports.
“Hi folks, how are you guys doing?”: The officer said.
“We are doing good, but we are lost”: I replied.
“How so?”: he said.
“We wanted to visit the Peace of Arch to celebrate our Sixth anniversary, and for unforeseen reasons, we ended up crossing the border because we missed the exit that heads to the Peace of Arch parking lot.” I replied with all these details.
He took some time to verify our IDs. He checked the cars. He asked us routine questions about firearms possession, ammo possession, any drug possession, etc. He asked us if we were US citizens. He then asked us the kids’ names, and he said he is making some verification. We spent about 30 minutes in front of him. When he finished his verification then he asked us to go to another booth to see another US CBP officer for further verifications.
When we reached to the other officers, he asked us the same questions.
“Do you have kids?”: Second US CBP Officer.
“Yes, we do have kids”: I replied.
Then this second US CBP officer asked a third US CBP Officer if he can let us go through. The third US CBP Officer said “No, please send them to me.”
Now there was another set of verifications. The third US CBP officer took our IDS again, then handed us a piece of paper where I wrote down the kids’ names, then the former name of my wife. She had a picture of her old passport in her phone, and I also wrote down the former passport number for my wife, and our current address. Then I gave the piece of paper to the US CBP Officer.
He said, he must do some verifications and make sure that everything is fine.
“Are you both US Citizen?”: He asked.
“Yes, we are.”: I replied.
“Are the kids born in the US?”: he asked another question.
“Yes, they were born here in Washington.”: I answered.
And then, he said: “I will be right back.”
I found that with US CBP officers, there is another meaning of “I will be right back.”. When a US CBP officer tells you: “I will be right back.”, please prepare yourself to wait for more than 2 hours. If you have a book, please open your book and read.
The kids in the cars started crying because they were tired for waiting. We had been waiting for about an hour already. We were going up and off from the car to flatter the kids to stop crying. They were miserable because of waiting. We were like we do not have any residence; we were miserable too. All of a sudden, we saw a US CBP officer coming, and we thought it was about us, we were happy, I even started the engine, but she was going to another car and people in the car were also waiting for their freedom. Do not ask me what freedom I’m talking about, you know what I’m talking about, if you followed me.
After about two hours, then the officer that took our IDs, and the name of the kids was coming back. He was walking toward our car. I felt like he was having good news for us.
He said: “Verification is done, you are good to go. Please here is your both IDs”.
“Thank you, Officer”: I said.
He handed us a piece of paper with some stamps on it, and he explained to us how to get out of that place. I started the car again and now it was to get out of that place. At the end of the booth, there was two US CBP officers again, they were waiting for us to take the piece of paper that was having the US CBP stamp. They said now you can turn off your blinker. Then we gained our freedom again as a US Citizen.
Lesson: Never ever forget to travel with your passport, if you plan to get around a US border. Always have your passport close to you when travelling around a US border.