Matthew Klint who writes ‘Live and Let’s Fly’ writes about feeling belittled by an immigration officer at LAX airport, returning from a trip to Germany. He was powerless, having to ‘take it’, mostly because his wife has a Green Card but is not a citizen, and because he thought he might have his Global Entry revoked if he objected to being condescended to. And he concludes,
I was not rude nor was I impolite; I had my family with me and was just trying to get home after 16 hours of travel.
I wish there was a way to hold folks like that accountable without being fearful of being denied entry, losing your Global Entry, or being subjected to secondary screening.
Klint suspects “these thugs processing passports are so rude” to compensate for unusually small genetalia. I do not think this holds sufficient explanatory power. Instead, here’s what I think is going on.
- Near total authority. At ports of entry and within the 100-mile “border zone,” officers may search and question people without warrants or traditional Fourth-Amendment thresholds. The job starts from a position of near-total authority, not consensual service.
- Immunity/no recourse. They have near-immunity from civil suits. In Egbert v. Boule (2022) the Supreme Court closed almost all Bivens-type damage claims against CBP agents, removing a personal liability as a deterrent for bad behavior that exists for many other federal officers.
- CBP has a paramilitary, threat-hunting mindset. They wear niforms, side-arms, and go through drill-style briefings. Their chain-of-command ethos reward compliance and toughness, not customer interaction.
- Expanded too quickly. Over the past two decades they’ve more than doubled their workforce, diluting requisite training and also leading to quality dilution of supervisors.
- Incentives matter. Performance metrics incentivize seizures, arrests and “hits.” Officers receive commendations, overtime and promotion points for enforcement statistics. There is no equivalent metric for traveler satisfaction.
- No discipline. There’s very little internal discipline. 97% of complaints end in “No Action Taken.” According to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, 47% of CBP employees don’t think misconduct is punished at any level.
- Union protections. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents the ~ 30,000 CBP Office of Field Operations employees (including CBP Officers), negotiates “last-chance” and arbitration provisions that make removals for misconduct difficult – and given the litiation managers have to deal with they regualrly don’t bother.
- Power differential. Most people being inspected lack legal representation, time, or practical recourse while the officer controls entry. The power differential itself breeds an imperious dynamic unless an individual officer chooses otherwise.
- Personnel inclined to this behavior self-select intot he role. CBP’s structure and recruiting pipeline create self-selection effects. Jobs that promise wide discretionary power, symbols of authority, generous overtime, early retirement, and a quasi-military identity tend to pull in applicants who are more disposed to hierarchy, control, and confrontation. Additionally, more than one-third of CBP’s workforce is ex-military.
Hayek’s chapter 10 in The Road to Serfdom (“Why The Worst Get On Top”) argues that in areas of centralized political decision-making, advancement hinges on wielding coercion, systematically reward the most ruthless, unscrupulous, and manipulative individuals, while crowding out those with stronger moral scruples or respect for dissent. In short: concentrated power acts as a selection filter, so “the worst get on top.”
You might take the view that bad people try to get into the country, and that the most effective way to stop them is the kind of hiring, training, and incentives that lead to treating citizens poorly at the border alongside non-citizens. I don’t think that’s the case, and don’t believe it keeps out bad actors or goes further in stopping unauthorized entry.
There’s little question, though, that the incentives and structure of CBP attract and train people who are more likely to treat people badly, and there’s little recourse when they do, reinforcing the behavior.
That’s not to say every border interaction is negative! There are good people working in these roles. But their courtesy isn’t because of their leadership or rules, it’s because in spite of both of these they choose to treat people passing through checkpoints with dignity and respect. Unfortunately not everyone does.
I, too, find the agents generally polite, professional, & well groomed. The one time I had my luggage randomly searched, the agents were very polite & commiserating.
If Clint is fearful of what might happen if he is impolite, he must have an unusually small brain in order to “’these thugs processing passports are so rude’ to compensate for unusually small genetalia,” not even managing to spell genitalia correctly. Good luck to him….
I went off on a TSA agent at Chicago O’hare. Couldn’t stay quiet. It eas too early in the morning to have some cop wanna be yelling at me and being condescending. As soon as I gave him the same energy, he hushed up. Government employees acting like they aren’t public servants definitely have big heads.
*in order to publish
I travel to South America 6 times a year, always through MIA or IAH and have never had a problem with CBP. They are always courteous and brief.
I am a CBP officer, and I can promise we are all polite and professional..unless the traveler earns a different treatment.
Until it personally happens to your readers, they won’t believe you. They think that you did something bad or your spouse or your family or somehow not deserving.
My comment to the entire article. Suck it up,.buttercup.
You can get Global ID as a Greencard holder. Your interaction with an agent should be minimal with Global ID.
Be polite, yes sir, yes ma’am, and move on with life.
I recently saw several people sent to another window by the Global Entry officer when arriving. I’d never seen it before, typically everyone was just waived through. Seemed odd, but I don’t fly that often so maybe it’s normal. Still, given the current clime, I wondered if it was related.
I generally don’t have many problems with CBP at airports, but when I do, it’s usually the same officer in DFW. He’s basically always waking up on the wrong side of the bed. Always grumpy. Lacks any semblence of initiative to interact with the public. Never greets you, never responds if you greet him, short and to the point. His colleagues however, are much different. Chatty, depending on the workload, at least greets you, kind and professional.
Honestly, I feel there’s more to the story than what’s led on to be.
@ Mike P. I don’t come to this site for intellectual stimulation but I do enjoy reading some of the comments. I find your quotes to be appropriate and entertaining. On the rare occasion I bother to read 1990’s posts I find his constant rebuttals and derisive comments quite boring. However, recently it appears he has discovered brevity…and that’s a good thing.
As one of the evil cbp officers , you are 100% inaccurate on your analysis of the training, rules, incitives, and punishments that you talk about. Politeness to USC’s is essential and is mandatory in the code of conduct. As for the fourth amendment, you as well as everybody else donr understand it does not apply since cbp inspections take place outside of US Borders, even if you are at an airport in the middle of the country. When your plane lands, that aircraft and everything in it is considered to be on foreign soil until cleared by a CBP officer.
I suspect Klint placing a comment like that on a very public well read blog won’t help his chances of a smooth entry (or keeping his GE) next time around :-l
I’m not surprised this happened to him (he can exude arrogance) and definitely not surprised he’s whining about it.
As noted above the buttercup could and should have sucked it up. Calling the guy a “thug” just underlines it.
He has no idea what a real thug is.
Well call me Buttercup 2. Sometimes you just get a mean little chuiwawa. Like when my gf and I entered for our 3rd annual holiday. She with a 10 year tourist visa. Me a citizen. He threatened to not allow entry next time. If you want to live here Get a green card. I did not stand up to him either as he could send her right back home. We did not want to live here. Just visit every year. That was 9 years ago. I hope they sent his ass to the southern border where he was needed. Short people got no reason
CBP sometimes ask questions to rattle possible smugglers. If you’re not a wuss with a wife who thinks she’s too good to American it’s not a problem. Should send crybaby Matthew to see Bukele
The Worst are in Australia. But only if I’m with my Asian wife. For America, where these guys are under pressure to catch someone, catch anyone, I have taken to wearing my “The Law School’ hat.
A US citizen is not going to be prevented from entering the country for refusing to answer some questions. They can search your luggage and person for illegal imports, but that’s about it.
The basic reason he got attitude was because he was answering questions directed to the green card holder and in a vague manner. When someone asks where you went on vacation to a country, who says, “the southwest corner?” The officer was logically thrown off by this answer and pressed to see if there was something odd about it. Intentional or not, it’s a weird answer.
Fly via Dublin, or any Canadian PoE, as you preclear customs/immigration in a foreign country.
The officers are generally courteous as they live outside the US and they don’t have to bow to the culture of the current regime.
FYI, if you qualify to upgrade your GC to citizenship, what’s stopping you?
They’re usually fairly nice to me when I come into the US through LAX, but I think part of it is because they can always sense my disappointment with having to be back in the US and they feel bad for me lol. They literally never even ask me any questions… it’s always just “welcome home” and I hate it when they say that.
While not every CBP agent is a jerk, the agency has far more than its fair share. I’ve been secondaried, harassed and threatened and I’m a US Citizen. It’s embarrassing watching them harangue foreign visitors for the horrible offense of wanting to come spend money in the US. We need to restore constitutional protections to the border areas and simplify the entry process. E-gates for all US Citizens and LPRs. A quick determination of valid visa /ESTA status for everyone else. Then determine if any goods are prohibited or dutiable then send them on their merry way!
It’s not their business where I was, what I was doing or who I was doing it with.
Nothing has changed much. Someone just wants to cry and the usual click bait ..
Or perhaps they are doing their job now? Who knows? But I have not had any issues either by land or air ..
Just answer the damn questions, show your passport and move on.
Had a border patrol agent yell at my wife and I because we did not use the global entry line because we missed the sign. She made us go back and check in through the global entry line and we ended up right in front of her again with her yelling at us even more. I complained via email afterwards, they claim it was dealt with but who knows.
What exactly did he cry about? He didn’t get his way or thought he could jump the line? “He felt belittled” what does that even mean? Being told to do something he didn’t agree with but everyone else does?
I worked in LAX’s international arrivals area for many years and can say that this article is very accurate.
Many of these CBP officers are neanderthals with guns. I witnessed many of them consistently mistreat international travelers with no provocation.
They behave this way because they can; and they were rarely made to face any consequences.
The CBP officers that were professional (the exception, not the rule) behaved that way because they chose to; not because of any organizational pressure to do so.
Several years ago, coming back to US via Vancouver Airport, where you clear US CBP inside the terminal before going to your departure gate, the guy at the podium was very rude. Demanded to know purpose of our 1 week visit to VAncouver, took my passport away and rifled through every (mostly blank) page, and then, oddly, held my passport “up to the light” above to see if it was counterfeit – which was clearly just for show because that’s not how anyone would know. He then flung the passport back at me (literally), and said “You’re free to go.” As if I was being detained??? (I’m 4th gen US citizen, born here, have had a passport of my own since age 12). It so destroyed my mood after a nice visit among polite Canadians.
I cross the Mexico-US border by land 20-30 times per year for work. I have a US passport and a Global Entry card but it makes no difference. 25% – 50% of Immigration employees are ex-military flunkies on a power trip. They are disappointed because they didn’t get a better location, like San Diego or Miami, and they take it out on US citizens and Green Card/Visa holders with stupid questions, delays, and threats. There is no motivation to report these goon because nothing will ever happen to them. Just the opposite: they will probably get promoted. My taxes shouldn’t pay for these losers. They should be working security at the mall.
I couldn’t disagree more. I volunteer at the Federal Inspection Station at the Raleigh-Durham International Airport and can attest that our CBP officers are friendly, kind and go out of their way to assist passengers arriving from international destinations.