Travelling across the B.C.-U.S. border can be a stressful time, and a recent social media post reported some strange behaviour when leaving the United States to enter Canada.
A post was made on the Bellingham subreddit with a Redditor, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, claiming they had a “bizarre experience” with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) when crossing the border at the Pacific Highway crossing.
“Yesterday, just as I was about to enter Canadian territory, two CBP agents jumped out of the bushes and stood in front of my car to stop me. Yes, I quite literally mean they were hiding in the shrubbery and jumped in front of my car, right there in the vehicle lane, to stop my car about 2-3 feet from the border marker,” they claimed in the post.
They added that they were questioned about what they bought in the U.S. and were planning to take into Canada, mentioning that the encounter took place at night, so it was extra hard to see the agents “before they jumped in front of my car.”
“In the agents’ defence, they were entirely professional and not aggressive or combative like you see in lots of social media videos, but regardless, it was an incredibly bizarre interaction,” they said.
One user commented that they experienced something similar when crossing into Canada by Lynden earlier this year.
“Agents weren’t hiding, but they were stopping about 1 out of 2 or 3 cars to question people about what they were taking into Canada. Never had that happen before.”
Someone else has a similar experience when coming to Vancouver, saying, “Last time they really grilled me on the way in, I was meeting a friend in Vancouver for lunch, and they asked me all sorts of questions about how I knew this person and what food I was going to get and everything.”
We asked the U.S. CBP to comment on the reports, and in response, it vehemently refuted the accusations.
“Claims of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents popping out from behind bushes are laughable,” U.S. CBP told Daily Hive in a statement.
“They take their responsibilities seriously and work tirelessly to protect the homeland and the safety of the American people. They don’t play hide-and-seek, they enforce the law.”
Have you experienced anything like this at the B.C. border?