And I've seen a guard in the American consulate in Vancouver berate people who were queued up for their visa interviews, early in the morning. The guy opened the door, said "Good morning!", and then stood there and waited. When nobody responded, he proceeded to tell the crowd that they should "get used to how we do this in America" before they get inside, and basically wouldn't let anyone in until the crowd chorused "Good morning" back in response.

My overall conclusion is that either the hiring practices for all these agencies are intentionally skewed towards that kind of employees, or that the lack of any meaningful responsibility quickly turns people into power-tripping assholes. Perhaps it's both.

Every time I see it I wait for them to get to that hallway between Immigration and Customs and apologize to them, try to assure them that the guy that did it is an asshole, but I'm only there like twice a year... lots of people getting a really shitty first impression of America after their 13 hour exhausting flight.

As an LA resident, I've long held a more general shame that LAX is such a poor airport in general. The whole experience of arriving, taxiing for 20 minutes, waiting an eternity for checked baggage in 1960s civic utilitarian architecture, and then standing on a concrete island outside amidst an armada of cars, trucks, and buses with squealing disc brakes and clouds of exhaust... LAX is an embarrassment to Los Angeles.

Now I hear that our CBP is also irrationally angry and offensive. Yuck.

The last time a guy was screaming "do you want to go to prison for 40 years!? do you!?!?!" to a confused and scared looking chinese lady, presumably because she didn't declare a fucking durian or something.

Also, and I know humor is generally frowned on here, but yelling in the presence of durian is understandable at a certain level, if you've ever tasted or smelled it.

I've never heard anyone on more of a shitheaded mean-spirited power trip than every American customs person I've stood near.

> Every fruit or vegetable must be declared to a CBP Agriculture Specialist or CBP Officer and must be presented for inspection - regardless of its admissibility status. Fresh fruits and vegetables need to be clean and may be prohibited if they have insects or diseases.

Additionally, durian from China is not allowed to be imported.

https://epermits.aphis.usda.gov/manual/index.cfm?NEW=1&COMMO...

I don't know what his problem was but I didn't care. I was going to get what I needed regardless.

Meanwhile in Europe, the very instant the plane touches down and finishes braking: ok everybody, you can switch on your phones now.

I can confirm the whole yelling thing at LAX.

I am a US citizen and travel frequently. A few years ago I returned from a trip at LAX, sent to the secondary inspection area, and yelled at by the CBP officer while going through my items. Then came the full media search, which took a few hours.

What made things worse is I am a co-founder of a VPN company and had with me source code, client data, encrypted backups, medical records, and other sensitive data on my phone, laptop and USB drives which I assume they inspected (and copied?) during their search.

I have since passed through LAX on many occasion without further searches, however it was a shocking experience that causes me a great deal of stress to this day whenever I think about going though that airport.

You are not your government. "Every citizen has the duty to protect their country from their government"

I say this as someone from a country that has had several decades of terrible governments.