It’s true – at Heathrow, American passport holders can use the e-gates. To use an e-gate, you line up, put your passport on a glass reader, look at a photo, and a computer figures out whether you are the same person as is shown in the Passport. In most cases, you’re allowed through and that’s it – collect your bags, go through customs, and on you go.
They’re not perfect. In December, we used e-gates in Munich for Schengen entry check, and one of my kids was pulled for secondary passport check. We used them again in London for UK entry, and my other kid was pulled for secondary passport check. Glitches happen.
Upon return to Toronto Pearson Airport, can you guess what they have? Well, it depends. At Terminal 1, if you have a NEXUS card, you use an e-gate and wave your NEXUS at a reader and you’re spat through to get your bag and then deal with Customs. If you don’t have NEXUS, you use a Kiosk that does most of the stuff automatically, and then you line up for an in-person check with a human CBSA officer. It’s quite efficient and speedy.
Did you know you could enter the US at the Toronto airport? You go through US passport control – again, there’s an expedited line for NEXUS holders – and boom, welcome to Mississauga, USA and when you arrive in the US, you do so as a domestic arrival. They have this in some Caribbean countries, and in Ireland.
So, there’s a big difference when you enter a country through a land border versus an airport. For starters, you’re not likely to be walking. You’re in a car. The car has stuff in it. The person in the booth is both passport control and customs. Now, you’ll be amazed if I tell you that the lanes at the land crossings in our area are all equipped with the same technology as e-gates – RFID scanners – and you can wave your Passport, NEXUS, or Enhanced License at them and they will scan the documents to be ready for the inspection officer.
I find in my experience that the questions asked at the border crossings seldom resemble a “blind date.” I don’t find the questions, “where are you coming from? Where did you go? What are you bringing back” to be especially “weird” nor does it send my “eye brows [sic] wriggling.” After all, it’s a hard border and you’re limited in terms of what you can take across. Usually, the officers are trained to detect oddball behavior and are probably likely to pull the people with weird answers and facial expressions over to secondary inspection.
Anyway, here’s my question – what does Nate’s flirtation with the border guard have to do with the number of lanes that are open? Is this going to be one of his platforms for the County Executive race, opening more inspection lanes at the border?
