Klee
Difficulty:  | Review Topic: Port of Entry Review
This review is for the Detroit Windsor tunnel. I'm giving a longer review because I've seen that most people seem to enter at the Ambassador Bridge and there weren't many reviews of the tunnel when I was looking for them.
We left my house in Windsor around 1pm with my fiance and parents. My fiance and I were catching a flight at 8pm. I managed to fit most of my belongings in 4 suitcases that we checked and then used UPS to ship a few boxes. We left early to make sure we could get them mailed on the US side (much cheaper and less hassle).
When we got to the border, there were barely any cars. We pulled up to the window and the man scolded my dad for pulling forward too soon. He was a stereotypical miserable border agent. My dad gave over all the passports and from the backseat I informed him I was entering on my K-1 visa. The man then called on his radio for someone to take us to secondary and put a sticker on our windshield. When no one came he escorted us there himself.
I had never been pulled into secondary before so I didn't really know what the procedure was. A border agent came over and told us to turn off the car, put the keys on the dash and step out. We were to leave all our electronics in the car, but to take our money with us. He was also miserable. We were instructed to cross to the other side of the parking lot and enter the building there.
You walk down a long hallway and the man checks you in. There were 2 other groups of people in there before us. We sat down and waited until we were called. The agents in secondary were much nicer and humoured my dad as he asked if they'd ever been on an episode of Border Security.
We were called up after about 5 or 10 minutes and handed over our passports to the man at the desk. At this point I handed over my sealed envelope as well and he opened it. He didn't ask for it, but I mentioned that I had a manifest and gave it to him. He looked it over and laughed when he saw that I had listed my SNES and N64. He said that was probably the last thing he expected to see on a manifest. There was a little chatting, he explained what the I-94 was etc etc. and then had us sit down so he could finish up some paperwork.
After about 5 minutes or so of waiting he called us up again and this time I gave my fingerprints and he also took a picture of me. He asked a few questions, about how we met, what website it was and what thread. It didn't seem like he was grilling us, more that he was curious how we met since we both look very young. He called us adorable once or twice which was funny. I couldn't have asked for a nicer, more competent person to have helped us, honestly. At the end he handed back my passport with a stamp and my I-94 stapled inside of it then sent us on our way.
I expected that when we got back in the car that some of my sealed boxes for UPS might have been opened but everything was as it was. I think they may have sifted through my purse and they definitely looked under the hood and in the glove compartment but that's about it.
We were in and out of there in about 20 minutes or so and it was incredibly easy. The border patrol agents in the booths always seem to be grumpy but the agents inside were much friendlier and nice. I obviously can't comment on how the ambassador bridge is compared to the tunnel for activating a visa, but I had a good experience at the tunnel so don't let the lack of reviews scare you away!
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Port of Entry Member Review #16374
Entry Date: 2017-05-09