To think that this sounds very fishy and untrue.

[ColinRobinsonsfamiliar]

My fil is an arse. No two ways about it.

We took him & mil to Florida for a holiday. Their first holiday abroad ever.

We gave them some brochures to read up on where we were going prior to going.

FIL read the small print on the back of the brochure and declared that he couldn’t go because he had a conviction that he had never disclosed to the family.
He was referring to the ESTA.

He revealed that he was arrested in 1968 for a minor theft from his job. (Think an off cut from the simple product). Also stole a tax disc and got caught.
He ended up travelling to London to the Embassy to be interviewed face to face to be assessed for suitability to holiday in America.This was a stipulation of the revelation of the arrest.
was granted this.
On arrival at the airport, going through passport control, fil was taken off into an interview room while we were ushered through the airport with all of the other traveler’s.
He was interviewed for nearly 2 hours before being released to continue his holiday.

I can’t help thinking that there is no way that this was because of a “minor theft”.
Anyone in the know could maybe shed Some light on this ?
It has bugged me for ages.

in order to ascertain that I wasn't over there for healthcare reasons. As if.

Good grief, @butterflied . Only if you fancy being bankrupt!

Even transiting the US is a PITA e.g flying to Latin America via the States, avoid at all costs. And if you're ever thinking of doing a cruise don't fly into Miami, look at cruises going from another port like Barbados.

My main concern at US customs is my DH losing his cool with the megalomaniacs at border control and getting hauled off.🙄

Egypt is in Africa so I don't think you answered incorrectly!

The perception of US citizens having very little knowledge of geography outside their own country is apparently true!

A relation of DH would be in the same boat as he was caught driving insanely over the alcohol limit, spent the night in a cell, had to go to court, paid a four figure fine and got a two year ban.

Can confirm, US immigration services can be very arbitrary, illogical, vindictive and capricious.
I was waiting to be asked the usual intrusive and random scowly questions in the “dodgy foreign scumbag” line at, I think it was LaGuardia, a few years back. My wife, an American, who also happens to be an attractive woman, made some remark to an immigration officer who perhaps was wondering why she was waiting around, and bada-bing! I was waved through! Mental.
And for the record, nicking offcuts from work, even out of a skip, can still get you immediately sacked and possibly arrested, depending on what the offcuts are. I worked at a place where they often had several thousand pounds worth of valuable metal offcuts in the skip out back.

I've never been stopped but friends have for seemingly random searches. The ones on our last trip were definitely on a power trip, all shouty and obnoxious for absolutely no reason.

I agree American border force needs to calm the fuck down on the "everyone wants to live here" shite - no we don't! it's a great country to visit briefly but there's no way on earth I would live there with guns, the precarious health care, guns, right wing nut jobs, guns, the abortion issue and well, guns.

Wow, this thread put me off to travel to US entirely.
I always wanted to go there , to drive across the states, to experience the US life, on holiday when I was younger and single, when I was in my 20s I was even thinking to be an au pair there ( this is in Mid 90s)
These days I would greatly go just for pro longed weekend to NY etc however being from East Europe I wonder whether they would stop me and probably wouldn’t let me enter even though I’m married to British citizen and living in U.K. since 1998.

Also, they have a surplus of their own criminals, without importing them from elsewhere.

If he was traveling alone and staying with friends then it’s not surprising he was pulled into secondary. I’m not saying it’s right. But the CBP officers are tasked with the assumption that every non-citizen or resident who presents themselves at the border inspection point is to be assumed to be intending to immigrate illegally. That’s how the law works. It’s then their job to decide if you are a genuine visitor or not. They use historical statistics to ascertain your likelihood of being genuine vs not genuine. And statistically, people traveling alone staying with friends are one of the most likely groups of individuals to overstay and/or work illegally.

Prior to moving here I was in the group that was the most likely to overstay: girlfriend (later fiancée, later wife) of a US citizen. I regularly received a grilling but was always admitted. I travelled back and forth close to 50 times before I moved here. I’d say I was grilled around 30-35 times.

Just to add to my previous post- I know of someone who went there last year for a 5 days stay - a couple in their mid 30s - both settled in the UK since 2004 for and she was stopped based on her origin ( east Europe but in EU)
They wouldn’t let her enter so sent her back home, the partner decided to carry all on his own as they spent lots of money on the tickets and did not want it to go waste.

You have to declare all convictions if going to the US - they don't have the 'Spent' system that we do. If you dont, and they find out, you are banned from life and sent back home straight away.

I agree with everybody else. US immigration are power hungry and often illogical. Your FIL's story is entirely likely.

Yes, you might not want to live here but millions do. They have to treat everyone the same way. Even people from the UK attempt to enter illegally. In fact, British citizens have an overstay rate of 0.3% which is higher than many other VWP countries and close to the 0.5% upper limit that the VWP allows. If Brits keep overstaying here, you can all kiss goodbye to the VWP and you’d have to apply for visas through the embassy.

You don’t have to come here if you find the way we protect our border to be inconvenient to you.

It's really not uncommon to see people being carted off to "secondary" for further screening, and that can sometimes even include airline crew who have jumped through umpteen hoops by way of screening and embassy visits to get their crew visas and yet still get clobbered by an official at the Border on the day.

I had a colleague who got pulled every time he entered the States because by chance he shared some details of somebody on interest to the Feds...nowt he could so about it.....OTOH I was lucky over the years and never got pulled.

Fundamentally it can happen to anybody for no obvious reason, it's a PITA, but it's their train set..you may never know the reason for the extra checks and there's little you can do about it.

Agree with the power mad. I was asked sexually explicit questions by a US boarder guard once. (Had I had anal sex? Did I like it?) At the time I was about 19 and a virgin, so it was horrific. I can only assume with hindsight he was getting off on it.

I've also been grilled extensively about my inevitable plans to stay. Single, late-twenties, visiting friends, two week holiday. The fact I had a professional career and mortgage back home didn't seem to matter.

Had an hour’s interview travelling to Miami not long after the Lockerbie disaster. I am white British, but with (what was) dark hair and fairly olive skin. I often used to get mistaken for Spanish, and on one occasion Middle Eastern. I had stamps for Morocco, Tunisia and two trips to Egypt in my passport. All of those factors were very suspicious to them. At the time, I was a travel agent, so eventually they accepted my explanation and believed me when I swore I didn’t have any ‘associates’ in those countries.

I agree with the other posters that say this sounds quite likely, I doubt there is much more to your FIL's crimes but as PP said, they are never spent for this kind of purpose. So in this instance, it wasn't your FIL being an arse - he's probably been completely truthful!

I can believe it, they are insane. I have a caution for possession of cannabis dating back nearly 35years from when I was young and stupid.

I had been to the US prior to that, but had to go three years ago. I had to attend an interview at the embassy in London where they kept me waiting for four hours. Asked me repeatedly if I still had a drug habit, was I an addict, had I been to rehab. Refused my visa, then four days later asked me to courier my passport to them and awarded a visa for ten years!

It was a really stressful and distressing experience, but at least I wasn't pulled in for interview at the airport!

HNRTT but if your suspicion is that his conviction was for something more serious than what he's said then it's possible but not certain. Long interview on arrival after Embassy interview sound suspicious but not impossible. Won't be easy to find records from c50 years ago if you have a compelling interest.

It’s arbitrary. A family member who has never been in trouble with the police was interviewed for an hour and then released to carry on with their holiday, so it seems plausible that this may be nothing to do with any declared convictions, but purely random.

My friend's daughter is going to a US university and had to be interviewed for ages to get the appropriate visa because she went on a school trip to China when she was 15, so I can quite believe your FILs story.

Even as a white female with Canadian citizenship, I've been subjected to some unpleasant questioning by US border personnel. Once as a PhD student, I went to visit my sister, who was living in the US at the time. The border guy questioned me in detail about how much money I had in my account, how I would pay for things, and what I would do if my sister and I had an argument-where I would stay (I said, "Errr, I'd go home??!"). The assumption seemed to be that I was trying to immigrate illegally (which to a Canadian seemed as silly as it seemed offensive). However, I have a friend with an Arabic name who was born in the Middle East. The fuss he got at a simple land crossing was unreal, and finally ended with the following exchange: "Why are you going to a chocolate festival?"-"I don't know how to answer that. Why WOULDN'T I go to a chocolate festival? It's a chocolate festival!"---"You're actually right, sir." (end of fuss). That being said, when he visited me in the UK, he ALSO got rather rough treatment at the UK border. Overall, though, my experiences are that the US border is especially bad for shouty, scary border personnel.

That being said, I was quite terrified once when I was going through security in Dallas, and got pulled aside by a security person! She said grimly to me: "I'm the airport fashion police, and I wanted to say that I absolutely LOVE your shoes!" 🙃

Long experience of US Border Security is that this is not unusual and not at all fishy. I’ve gone into the US on visas, and visa waivers, and have been questioned in detail ( not in an interview room though!) sometimes, and sometimes waved through.

He’s not on any international watch list or anything like that - that’s ridiculous. But he disclosed an arrest. Border Control staff do their job thoroughly.

@Zilla1

Long interview on arrival after Embassy interview sound suspicious but not impossible.

As others have mentioned if you don't tick all the boxes as being squeaky clean for a holiday ESTA Visa you can pretty much expect an Embassy interview.

Even airline crew with a clean record (e.g. UK Criminal record check), previous US Visa and certified employment etc have to attend the Embassy (e.g in London) for interview every Visa renewal (ten years). The US authorities are very tight on checks and they do seem to like interviews....

They probably only decline to interview all holidaymakers applying for an ESTA because they'd be overwhelmed at the Embassy but if they could I bet they would...so count your blessings..

If I was the OP I really wouldn't be reading too much into either the demand for an interview or the secondary screening, and it wouldn't be something to get bugged about.

Love the Woodcraft Folk anecdote @badbaduncle