Got a few minutes and wanted to make some more comments...
I've had several ugly situations while entering the US. Last time I visited (March this year) I went through LAX. I was greeted very nicely by the officer, had all my paperwork done and off I went. Then I went to Baja California (MX) where I would stay at a friends/client house.
Then I had to cross the border (through Tijuana) to go to a marketing expo at AZ. The experience was nerve-wrecking. The border patrol officer started telling me I was hiding something because of my body language (apparently he saw too much "Lie to me") and started questioning why I had friends in the US, how had I met them and so on. After about 20 minutes we were let go.
Like I said, I've worked at immigration in my home country, so I know how it works and stuff, but there are more professional ways to handle matters than just accuse people, push and see if they bite.
Also, what I missed to add to my comment above... In (most) mainstream US movies, you see that no matter what your job is you can lead a pretty nice life. Even if you work as a bartender, you can have your small apartment and be in charge of your life.
I don't think it works like that. I met a client that was a school teacher and he was broke. Some of my clients have declared for bankruptcy, and some very, very rich clients have lost a lot of RE and have to downsize their homes by an order of magnitude.
I know it works like that pretty much everywhere, but for some reason all this things I imagined as a kid, stuck with me until I visited the US. It's like deep down we hope there's a place were things are better, and the US could be that place; so we buy into the dream (until we realize it was a dream and there's no such place).
> The border patrol officer started telling me I was hiding something because of my body language (apparently he saw too much "Lie to me") and started questioning why I had friends in the US, how had I met them and so on
Cops are dicks, plain and simple, they are not your friends; Hollywood definitely glosses over this. The reality is more like Training Day, those are real cops, mostly straight but dirty when it benefits them. How they treat you tends to depend heavily on your race.
> In (most) mainstream US movies, you see that no matter what your job is you can lead a pretty nice life. Even if you work as a bartender, you can have your small apartment and be in charge of your life.
Ah, interesting observation; yea, that's not true that all.
I don't think that all cops are dicks, but they have the power to behave like it if they want to.
One of my dream jobs has always been to be a murder investigator though (I'm a big fan of "The Wire"):-)
And yeah, even though I'm from South America, I don't look too latino. I once crossed the border with two mexican friends. They definitely treated them worse than me.
I've had several ugly situations while entering the US. Last time I visited (March this year) I went through LAX. I was greeted very nicely by the officer, had all my paperwork done and off I went. Then I went to Baja California (MX) where I would stay at a friends/client house.
Then I had to cross the border (through Tijuana) to go to a marketing expo at AZ. The experience was nerve-wrecking. The border patrol officer started telling me I was hiding something because of my body language (apparently he saw too much "Lie to me") and started questioning why I had friends in the US, how had I met them and so on. After about 20 minutes we were let go. Like I said, I've worked at immigration in my home country, so I know how it works and stuff, but there are more professional ways to handle matters than just accuse people, push and see if they bite.
Also, what I missed to add to my comment above... In (most) mainstream US movies, you see that no matter what your job is you can lead a pretty nice life. Even if you work as a bartender, you can have your small apartment and be in charge of your life. I don't think it works like that. I met a client that was a school teacher and he was broke. Some of my clients have declared for bankruptcy, and some very, very rich clients have lost a lot of RE and have to downsize their homes by an order of magnitude.
I know it works like that pretty much everywhere, but for some reason all this things I imagined as a kid, stuck with me until I visited the US. It's like deep down we hope there's a place were things are better, and the US could be that place; so we buy into the dream (until we realize it was a dream and there's no such place).