My boss was heading to the great white north, AKA Canada, for a sales conference. He gets to customs in Toronto and he told me later that he knew it was going to be trouble when he got to the window. The clerk working the counter was clearly in a bad mood and she started off being very sharp with him.

So she asked for his passport and snapped it away from him.

Asked him the normal questions, Why are you here? What are you doing? Can man ever really hope to know love in this vast, cold universe?

Well, not really that last one. But she did ask him if he had ever been arrested. Boss had a bit of a wild youth back in Montana…or was it Idaho…Oh well, same thing. So he copped to it and said that yes, he had been arrested in HS for general hooliganism.

So the custom lady told him to stay there and went in back for about 5 minutes. Then she came out and asked him to follow her into the back where there were 2 other customs agents waiting. They went through my bosses luggage with a fine tooth comb and asked him a long series of question, then left him sitting in an empty room for the next 4 hours.

At the end of that time, they walked him to a gate that was boarding a flight back to Houston and put him on the plane. And that was that.

Turns out he had actually been arrested twice in High School. Not just once. So they deported him for lying to the customs officials.

What happened?

Nothing.

He got back to Houston and went home.

Unless you have a warrant or are otherwise wanted back in your home country. It’s just like flying to that country for any other reason.