Customs and Immigration: What a Pain!
For those of us that love to travel, there are a select group of people that try to make our lives that much harder and try to ruin a trip before it has even begun and those people are the border services officers. I know they have a job to do and I know they are trying to find out if you have any illegal activities planned or if you are planning to illegally immigrate. However, sometimes they are just highly unreasonable.
A friend of mine recently came to England from Canada and was questioned (with his conversation recorded) by an English border officer for around 30 minutes. Questions ranging from his plans to his finances to my plans and my finances were asked, apparently we ran into problems because part of our trip was to go italy skiing, but he didn’t have the documentation on him to show his train tickets. He was given a load of paperwork to go with his lengthy interview. I thought this was entirely pointless and unreasonable and it seemed as if this particular border officer had just gotten up on the wrong side of the bed on that day.
Beyond just the border officers, it is the modern day rules on immigration that stop people, who are just looking to travel, from doing just that because these countries are so suspicious that you are going to do something wrong. For example, I recently spent nine months in Canada and I would love to go back as soon as I have made some money to do so, but I know I will run into issues on the other side because I recently spent so much time there.
Who am I hurting by travelling the world? No-one, but that doesn’t seem to matter here. It is as if the border officers and the immigration rules assume that everyone is a terrorist or everyone is trying to illegally immigrate. I find the process a little ridiculous and the customs and immigration people all over the world could definitely do with lightening up.