My weekend adventure
Life has been quite normal for past few months.. Nothing exciting has happened. I had been thinking , this is unusual.. For me, its a must that something crazy happens once every few months.Not that i want it that way, but invariably that is the case....
It was the independence day long weekend. Three of us planned a trip to grand canyon. We flew down to San diego from San francisco and then drove all the way to Grand canyon. We reached the place early in the morning.Grand canyon is truly one of the wonders of the world. We spend some time shuttling around at various vista points enjoying different views and taking picures.. Then in the afternoon we took a trail down to the colorado river through the canyon. It was a strenous, yet exciting hike . It took us about 7 hours to complete the 8 mile hike. We were totally exhausted but the hike was worth the experience.
Next day we started on our way back ,spending few hours at one of my relatives home in phoenix. By about 7 in the evening we left phoenix and were on our final 5 hr stretch to San diego. The highway connecting Phoenix and San diego goes all the way through the US-Mexico border. The roads were usually empty and we could find few trucks once in a while. We were cruising along happily until we reached one of the Border patrol checkposts.
We could see the checkpost from quite a distance away. It had a cinematic look, with all those high wattage flashy lights ,army trucks , dust and lot of human activity. There was a huge queue of vehicles in front of us, one by one passing through the checkpost. We waited impatiently in the car for our turn. We reached the checkpost..
" Good evening , Gentlemen...." An officer wished us..
" Good evening...", we said in unison
He flashed a torchlight through the car
" Are you guys american citizens?"
" No.. We are from India..."
" Do you guys have your immigration documents, Passports and visa with you...?Can i please see them?"
Two of us had our passports. Rakesh had his california drivers license. He , as all other indians in bay area, strongly believed that since the license is a government issued document based on the immigration details, its ok to just carry the license when travelling inside US.
" I have only my drivers license. I dont have my passport", Rakesh said..
" Only drivers license?..." he changed his tone to one that reminded me of Bruce willis in Die hard..." You should know that as immigrants in this country , you are supposed to carry passport with valid visa at all times. Drivers license is not enough to prove that you are a legal immigrant in this country.."
"But sir, ", rakesh tried to argue.." This is a valid goverment issued document and is issued after checking all the immigration details..."
"Nope... That is not acceptable.. please go ahead and park your car by the red cone on the side and turn it off...." He said pointing us to the secondary search location. He sent another officer with us to verify the documents...
We did as he asked and sat in the car. Couple of officers came by the car. They took both our passports and one Drivers license. We could see through the rear view mirror that they were checking our docs. After a while one of them came back with the documents.
" Ok.. This one is clear... Sir, you have a valid business visa and you can have it.. " .He gave back the passport to Murukan.
"Now, lets see.... who's Arun?"
"Its me... ", i replied..
"Sir, your visa has expired on the 11th of may...Currently as per your passport you are an illegal immigrant in this country.. "
' Yeah... I have applied for my H1-extension and..." I tried to explain.
"Doesn,t matter..!!!!" another officer, seemingly a senior, more rude guy, jumped in from no-where..."There is no proof ... where is the notice that acnowledges the receipt of the H1 extension filing? I cant see anything in your passport." he continued..
"Sir, But my employer applied for it and the receipt goes to them and i have not ...", I was getting desperate...
"No Buts ... we need proof.. How can i know you are not lying.. Daily thousands of people pass by this road.. Some of them claim they are US citizens..Eventually we find out they are illegal immigrants..."
I had no answer.. " Sir, i am sorry i dont have the document with me now.. I will carry it from next time onwards.."
He nodded in disagreement...."'And you sir." He turned to Rakesh...." You dont have any immigration documents, no visa, no passport with you.. If you remember, you have signed on a piece of paper when entering this country stating that you will carry your pasport and visa at all times when in US."
"I am sorry sir. I left it at home.. " Rakesh pleaded
It was not going to work anyways...
"Gentlemen, Kindly step out of your vehicle" He told to me and rakesh... "make sure that you take all your belongings with you..." we are going to take you to the office and run a validity check."
We knew by that time that things were out of our hand....
We came out of the car....
"Ok gentlemen, we need to search you completely to see if you have any lethal weapons , firearms, knives etc.. Please turn around, spread your legs, put your arms behind your head..."
We obeyed...
They ran a complete body search on both of us.. They toook away my camera, cell phone and asked me to remove all other things in my pocket.
They asked us to sit inside a tent . we sat there for about 15-20 minutes. Then a van arrived which had border patrol written on it. It was a 4X4 truck with a rectangle shaped box behind. They opened the box, asked us to get in and locked us...It was a completely closed area with grills covering the only small opening... It had a speaker sort of thing and metal seats. Sitting inside that was really an embarassment.. It reminded me of culprits in India taken away in police jeeps.. Murukan was asked to follow the truck to the police station.
The truck started and roared through I-8 highway. It certainly seemed a very long trip. Finally after 20 miles of so, they reached a place called calexico...., I assume its a word made from California and Mexico.. They stopped the truck asked Murukan to wait in the parking lot and then continued to another place.This was the main boder security police station.
Though tensed, we liked the way the station was organised.. It was circular.There were 9 rooms . some of them had some prisoners in them. We were asked to sit by one of the rooms in a chair and wait.
The next concentric inner circle was king of a reception area. This had few computers and couple of policemen were standing there.
"Are u guys hungry? Do u need some water"...asked one of the officer picking up some covers from a box.
" No, thanks, we are good".. we replied. Actually, i could use some water , but somehow i could not resist saying no
"OK.. Now please wait here. Let me go and get the documents verified...." He went in to the inner most glass-covered room. That seemed to be the main room. He called up some central office and gave our details to them to run a check. Then he came back out and started entering our details on one of the system to try and verify it himself.
He entered my name, DOB and passport number and hit enter.
" No... I dont see anything.. No records at all...." .
I was shocked to hear this. Oh shit, i thought.. what is happening.. Is this a system glitch... I am screwed...
He went inside again.we waited there murmering the possibilities of what could happen to us if they were not able to find our correct details... Would we be in one of those nine rooms?There was surely a chance of being deported.....Time was moving dead slow. After a long wait of about half an hour, he finally came out with a fax report of four-five pages containing our information. He checked it, came towards me , handed over my passport and said..
"OK sir, Your employer has indeed filed your extension.... As soon as you go back , first thing, contact your employer or indian consulate and get the acknowledgement receipt and carry it with you all the time."
It was a huge relief to hear those words from his mouth..
"Sure.... That will be the first thing...." I said..
I turned around and smiled at Rakesh.Apparently there was no smile in his face. His face was tensed. They did not return his License.
"You, Mr Rakesh, ", he turned to rakesh, "You dont have any other document with you.I am not sure if i can let you go..."
He then turned to another officer and they started murmering..I could hear bits and pieces of their conversations...
" I dont know what to do with this guy... I cant let him go with just the license..."
"Its up to u.. u can decide....."
"I dont know...."
Both of them went inside, presumably to talk to their senior officer... They came out after sometime..
" OK.. here's your license... Make sure that from next time onwards, you carry your documents with you..."
"Yeah... will do that.." rakesh replied.. The smile was back on his face....
They guided us back to the truck, opened the door..
"We are going to deport you to Mexico to a strip club...." He said with a wry smile signalling us to get in..
We smiled playfully...
They drove us back to the parking lot where murukan was wating and let us go..
Finally the 3 hrs tension was over.... we continued the trip back to San diego... we drove quietly for some time.. We were back to normal and could start thinking of the incident as a funny episode and started making jokes about it and laughing it out..
We were about 50 miles to san diego..and then at a distance we found another thing.. The next border patrol check post...All of us thought... Oh shit... another 3 hrs gone...The officer asked the same set of questions as the previous one.. We gave the same set of answers... In addition we mentioned the calexico station trip as well.. Somehow, i think he got convinced that we were telling the truth.. He let us go with just a warning...
So by 4 am in the morning, we reached san diego..
The weekend had a perfect adventurous ending... One thing that i learned from this trip is .....
Never travel on that road again... :)
It was the independence day long weekend. Three of us planned a trip to grand canyon. We flew down to San diego from San francisco and then drove all the way to Grand canyon. We reached the place early in the morning.Grand canyon is truly one of the wonders of the world. We spend some time shuttling around at various vista points enjoying different views and taking picures.. Then in the afternoon we took a trail down to the colorado river through the canyon. It was a strenous, yet exciting hike . It took us about 7 hours to complete the 8 mile hike. We were totally exhausted but the hike was worth the experience.
Next day we started on our way back ,spending few hours at one of my relatives home in phoenix. By about 7 in the evening we left phoenix and were on our final 5 hr stretch to San diego. The highway connecting Phoenix and San diego goes all the way through the US-Mexico border. The roads were usually empty and we could find few trucks once in a while. We were cruising along happily until we reached one of the Border patrol checkposts.
We could see the checkpost from quite a distance away. It had a cinematic look, with all those high wattage flashy lights ,army trucks , dust and lot of human activity. There was a huge queue of vehicles in front of us, one by one passing through the checkpost. We waited impatiently in the car for our turn. We reached the checkpost..
" Good evening , Gentlemen...." An officer wished us..
" Good evening...", we said in unison
He flashed a torchlight through the car
" Are you guys american citizens?"
" No.. We are from India..."
" Do you guys have your immigration documents, Passports and visa with you...?Can i please see them?"
Two of us had our passports. Rakesh had his california drivers license. He , as all other indians in bay area, strongly believed that since the license is a government issued document based on the immigration details, its ok to just carry the license when travelling inside US.
" I have only my drivers license. I dont have my passport", Rakesh said..
" Only drivers license?..." he changed his tone to one that reminded me of Bruce willis in Die hard..." You should know that as immigrants in this country , you are supposed to carry passport with valid visa at all times. Drivers license is not enough to prove that you are a legal immigrant in this country.."
"But sir, ", rakesh tried to argue.." This is a valid goverment issued document and is issued after checking all the immigration details..."
"Nope... That is not acceptable.. please go ahead and park your car by the red cone on the side and turn it off...." He said pointing us to the secondary search location. He sent another officer with us to verify the documents...
We did as he asked and sat in the car. Couple of officers came by the car. They took both our passports and one Drivers license. We could see through the rear view mirror that they were checking our docs. After a while one of them came back with the documents.
" Ok.. This one is clear... Sir, you have a valid business visa and you can have it.. " .He gave back the passport to Murukan.
"Now, lets see.... who's Arun?"
"Its me... ", i replied..
"Sir, your visa has expired on the 11th of may...Currently as per your passport you are an illegal immigrant in this country.. "
' Yeah... I have applied for my H1-extension and..." I tried to explain.
"Doesn,t matter..!!!!" another officer, seemingly a senior, more rude guy, jumped in from no-where..."There is no proof ... where is the notice that acnowledges the receipt of the H1 extension filing? I cant see anything in your passport." he continued..
"Sir, But my employer applied for it and the receipt goes to them and i have not ...", I was getting desperate...
"No Buts ... we need proof.. How can i know you are not lying.. Daily thousands of people pass by this road.. Some of them claim they are US citizens..Eventually we find out they are illegal immigrants..."
I had no answer.. " Sir, i am sorry i dont have the document with me now.. I will carry it from next time onwards.."
He nodded in disagreement...."'And you sir." He turned to Rakesh...." You dont have any immigration documents, no visa, no passport with you.. If you remember, you have signed on a piece of paper when entering this country stating that you will carry your pasport and visa at all times when in US."
"I am sorry sir. I left it at home.. " Rakesh pleaded
It was not going to work anyways...
"Gentlemen, Kindly step out of your vehicle" He told to me and rakesh... "make sure that you take all your belongings with you..." we are going to take you to the office and run a validity check."
We knew by that time that things were out of our hand....
We came out of the car....
"Ok gentlemen, we need to search you completely to see if you have any lethal weapons , firearms, knives etc.. Please turn around, spread your legs, put your arms behind your head..."
We obeyed...
They ran a complete body search on both of us.. They toook away my camera, cell phone and asked me to remove all other things in my pocket.
They asked us to sit inside a tent . we sat there for about 15-20 minutes. Then a van arrived which had border patrol written on it. It was a 4X4 truck with a rectangle shaped box behind. They opened the box, asked us to get in and locked us...It was a completely closed area with grills covering the only small opening... It had a speaker sort of thing and metal seats. Sitting inside that was really an embarassment.. It reminded me of culprits in India taken away in police jeeps.. Murukan was asked to follow the truck to the police station.
The truck started and roared through I-8 highway. It certainly seemed a very long trip. Finally after 20 miles of so, they reached a place called calexico...., I assume its a word made from California and Mexico.. They stopped the truck asked Murukan to wait in the parking lot and then continued to another place.This was the main boder security police station.
Though tensed, we liked the way the station was organised.. It was circular.There were 9 rooms . some of them had some prisoners in them. We were asked to sit by one of the rooms in a chair and wait.
The next concentric inner circle was king of a reception area. This had few computers and couple of policemen were standing there.
"Are u guys hungry? Do u need some water"...asked one of the officer picking up some covers from a box.
" No, thanks, we are good".. we replied. Actually, i could use some water , but somehow i could not resist saying no
"OK.. Now please wait here. Let me go and get the documents verified...." He went in to the inner most glass-covered room. That seemed to be the main room. He called up some central office and gave our details to them to run a check. Then he came back out and started entering our details on one of the system to try and verify it himself.
He entered my name, DOB and passport number and hit enter.
" No... I dont see anything.. No records at all...." .
I was shocked to hear this. Oh shit, i thought.. what is happening.. Is this a system glitch... I am screwed...
He went inside again.we waited there murmering the possibilities of what could happen to us if they were not able to find our correct details... Would we be in one of those nine rooms?There was surely a chance of being deported.....Time was moving dead slow. After a long wait of about half an hour, he finally came out with a fax report of four-five pages containing our information. He checked it, came towards me , handed over my passport and said..
"OK sir, Your employer has indeed filed your extension.... As soon as you go back , first thing, contact your employer or indian consulate and get the acknowledgement receipt and carry it with you all the time."
It was a huge relief to hear those words from his mouth..
"Sure.... That will be the first thing...." I said..
I turned around and smiled at Rakesh.Apparently there was no smile in his face. His face was tensed. They did not return his License.
"You, Mr Rakesh, ", he turned to rakesh, "You dont have any other document with you.I am not sure if i can let you go..."
He then turned to another officer and they started murmering..I could hear bits and pieces of their conversations...
" I dont know what to do with this guy... I cant let him go with just the license..."
"Its up to u.. u can decide....."
"I dont know...."
Both of them went inside, presumably to talk to their senior officer... They came out after sometime..
" OK.. here's your license... Make sure that from next time onwards, you carry your documents with you..."
"Yeah... will do that.." rakesh replied.. The smile was back on his face....
They guided us back to the truck, opened the door..
"We are going to deport you to Mexico to a strip club...." He said with a wry smile signalling us to get in..
We smiled playfully...
They drove us back to the parking lot where murukan was wating and let us go..
Finally the 3 hrs tension was over.... we continued the trip back to San diego... we drove quietly for some time.. We were back to normal and could start thinking of the incident as a funny episode and started making jokes about it and laughing it out..
We were about 50 miles to san diego..and then at a distance we found another thing.. The next border patrol check post...All of us thought... Oh shit... another 3 hrs gone...The officer asked the same set of questions as the previous one.. We gave the same set of answers... In addition we mentioned the calexico station trip as well.. Somehow, i think he got convinced that we were telling the truth.. He let us go with just a warning...
So by 4 am in the morning, we reached san diego..
The weekend had a perfect adventurous ending... One thing that i learned from this trip is .....
Never travel on that road again... :)
Comments
By the way, did they have a box large enough to fit you in? ???? :-)))
Luckily Muru didnt get a chance for his 'famous' line "There are some more bachelors in the top floor"!!!!!!!!!!!
Now get the reciept from land far far away(India) by coming here so that you dont have sit in the box vehicle.
Instead, You could enjoy the wait outside police station in the car while some other friend travelled first calls in the police van. ;)
Unforgettable experience indeed. Lucky fella...
The second part on getting yourselves close to arrested - Am sure you guys can brag about it for a life time!
That sounds amazing..
Up and down in a single day is awesome!!!!