US Immigration denied entry to a US citizen?!?!?! (I don't doubt your story Brian, it's their actions that are incredulous).

Bill

At 03:06 PM 6/2/01, you wrote:

I don't know of a building but I have been "transferred", as you say, across a bridge from Canada to the US. I've told this story here before but the summary is:

I was 18 years old and hitchhiking from Boston to the west coast. At the time, hitchhiking was not legal in Pennsylvania or Ohio so I decided to circumvent them by entering Canada in Buffalo, NY and popping back out in Detroit, MI. I walked across the Peace Bridge in Buffalo but was denied entry into Canada, handed a document declaring me an "undesirable alien", and sent back across the bridge. The US customs officers got a kick out of this and gave me another piece of paper and told me to go back to Canada, which I did. Of course the US paper meant nothing and I was sent back to the US. Please bear in mind that it was probably 100 degrees in the shade, of which there was none on the bridge, and the bridge was about a mile across. Anyway, on my second return to the US I stopped in the middle of the bridge, between the US and Canada flagpoles and ate lunch, then proceeded to US customs where I was denied entry because it was not permitted to hitchhike on the New York Thruway. After several hours of sitting in an interrogation room twiddling my thumbs, a youngish customs guy gave me materials to make a sign to use in lieu of hitchhiking. I had no idea where to go so I simply wrote "Out of Here" in block letters. The second car picked me up and I was out of there, having lost a day and my sense of humor regarding both countries' customs services.

BJB