New question at the US border: TWO pieces of identification!!

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Dog Folks said:
Just to clarify, and this is from the "horses mouth:"  If the agent decides he/she can ask for 5 pieces of ID. 

If the agent does not like your answer or you are giving them "attitude:" you will find yourself in secondary inspection which can be "lengthy and brutal" if your attitude does not improve.

ALL Websites, rumors,  personal experiences aside,  the bottom line is: The agent has the sole power to decide if you are going to enter the country or not.

A lot of responsibility rests on their shoulders, and 99% of them take their job very seriously.

Give them the respect they deserve, be polite, provide the requested information, don't lie, or conceal banned items, and your crossing will go well.

as much as I think this is the wrong approach  I agree 100% with your statement  and its really just the way it is like it or not.What I mean when I say wrong approach is a single BPA having the sole authority to allow u in or reject you is just wrong. I think there should be more than one agent involved when you have extreme cases such as we have seen in the last few years.BUT all that aside. Just comply as required, answer all question directly and truthfull and you will have no problems going either way
 
Good points Dog Folks. I shake my head when I see travelers be openly disrespectful to BP officers, and some dumb ones who blatantly lie when it's even obvious to me that they're lying.
 
Living 10 minutes from Niagara Falls, NY, I cross often into the USA and have done so without my passport 4 times in the last few years.

#1) I accidentally took my wife's passport instead of mine. I told the customs officer I liker her picture better because she had more hair. He just asked for my driver's license and  why I was going across the border.

#2) I forgot it but had my driver's license and birth control certificate. Again no problem.

#3) I had lost my passport and got a new one. A few days later my buddy found my original passport in his truck that I had never been inside of. He must have taken my passport by mistake. I accidentally took my cancelled passport with me on my next visit to the USA. I had to go in and explain what happened but no problem, off you go.

#4) Went camping with some friend's and the friend's wife and I got our passports mixed up. I took hers on my next visit. I made another crack about the nice hair. No problem. Off you go.

Maybe it helps if you don't have a lot of hair and act stupid. :)
 
I believe casual crossing into the USA by Canadians and by automobile does not require a passport but it is still a preferred form of identification. Many provinces were able to issue a drivers licence that contains sufficient valid info for the Canada to USA border crossings by automobile and the return to Canada. The acceptance of alternative forms of identification, however, may be dependant on the particular Border Services Officer on duty at any given time and crossing for extended periods may well be different. Any other form of transport, (train, bus, air, boat), DOES require a valid passport to enter the USA. Pleasure Boaters are also required to have a Boat Landing Permit Form I68, which has its own set of reporting rules and is usually issued seasonally.

Americans travelling into Canada may not have the same luck. They can be refused entry on their return to USA by the US Border Services people if they cannot present their valid US passport.

The rules on sharing visitor entry and exit information between Canada and USA border control folks are changing and are not into effect just yet, but it won't be long.

Personally, I have always used my passport. As of late 2014, the Drivers Licence Plus option is no longer available in Quebec, due, it seems, to a lack of interest, but then it was a lot more costly than a regular drivers licence and had to be renewed much more often than  passports which are now issued for a 10 year period.

I would have thought that carrying someone else's passport (especially non family) would have resulted in it's confiscation, perhaps it would have been  if picked up on the Canadian side. But you probably did not need to show it on re-entry to Canada.
 
@ Tom:  A bit of clarification on nomenclature:  Border Patrol - the guys with the green uniforms who work BETWEEN the ports of entry and who man the inland BP checkpoints.  These are the REAL MEN (even our female agents are manly) of the Department of Homeland Security.

CBPO Customs and Border Protection Officers - the guys who wear blue uniforms and sniff your undies and check for fruit at the Ports of Entry, seaports and airports.  You can probably tell we have a friendly disdain for each other.  They actually perform a vital duty and they have a lot more knowledge of fake passports and other documents than do most BP agents.  And they are REALLY good at discovering hidden compartments on vehicles.
 
Thanks for the clarification inscop. You're right of  course, and I'm occasionally (too often) guilty of interchanging terms, although my comment was posted almost a year ago.
 
Alfa38User said:
I would have thought that carrying someone else's passport (especially non family) would have resulted in it's confiscation, perhaps it would have been  if picked up on the Canadian side. But you probably did not need to show it on re-entry to Canada.

Yes, you have to show it going both ways. I just explained that we went camping together and we had the same black cover on our passports and got them mixed up.
 
 
A bit of clarification on nomenclature:  Border Patrol - the guys with the green uniforms who work BETWEEN the ports of entry and who man the inland BP checkpoints.  These are the REAL MEN (even our female agents are manly) of the Department of Homeland Security.

...and fly small airplanes back and forth along the border!!.

Oh!!! Those must have been the guys/gals who were all dressed in camouflage uniforms, with body armour and big guns and that stormed into the bay where we were sitting quietly at anchor and insisted on boarding a boat there, claiming we were all illegally anchored in US waters. (Most were were actually on moorings placed in that bay).

Hmm, I had one suggestion for them, an immediate refresher course on small boat navigation and offered them an updated chart as we were actually in Canada. The bay to the south of us and the US border were about 800 yards south......  (Off the Canadian Middle Ship Channel,  in the St. Lawrence River and the eastern tip of Lake Ontario, where the boarder plays hopscotch between the various 1000 Islands. This took place some time before 9/11.

Nah... it couldn't have been them.... could it??  :-[  heh heh!!
 
A few years back I attended a touring motorcycle rally in Hyder Alaska, a small isolated portion of Alaska that is only accessible by road through Stewart BC. No crossing stop going from Stewart into Hyder, but Customs stop re-entering BC. Wearing full gear including helmet and earplugs, the agent asked what I thought was "Do you have more than $10,000 insurance?" When I replied yes, her eyes got real wide! I removed helmet & plugs and she clarified "$10,000 in currency". We both had a good laugh!
 
I think the border agents often ask out of the ordinary questions just to see if they get an odd reaction that may tip them off to someone trying to cross illegally.
Although only one piece of ID may be required to cross the border, there is nothing that says he can't ask for two.



 
Bobmws said:
A few years back I attended a touring motorcycle rally in Hyder Alaska, a small isolated portion of Alaska that is only accessible by road through Stewart BC. No crossing stop going from Stewart into Hyder, but Customs stop re-entering BC. Wearing full gear including helmet and earplugs, the agent asked what I thought was "Do you have more than $10,000 insurance?" When I replied yes, her eyes got real wide! I removed helmet & plugs and she clarified "$10,000 in currency". We both had a good laugh!

I've been to Hyderseek twice on my motorcycle.
Once I had to stop, shut down the bike, and remove my helmet to talk to the agent. The other, I just pulled up, and with the bike running,he asked how long I had been in Hyder, if I was bringing anything back into Canada, and said "Have a nice ride".
 
thank you border patrol people on both sides
live in canada summer & winter in florida
feel safe on both sides
 
On re-entering the US from Ontario a couple of years ago, the border officer ask my dog if she had left anything in Canada. When I told him just some liquid in the grass at the Flying J in London, he asked her if she was sure she hadn't left anything solid. I told him if she had, I would have bagged up the "evidence" and brought it with us. He laughed and said, "Good man!", and waved us on through.  ;D
 

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