David Steinebach from Langley was returning to B.C. in April after going down to Lynden in Washington state to buy some gas.
“I would still go down there every week to go get gas,” he told Global News.
“I have Nexus, so it’s very easy and fast for me to go down. And I go down through the Aldergrove-Lynden border crossing.”
Steinbach said it was 9:30 a.m. and he got to about 150 to 200 metres before the Canadians border and there was about six or seven U.S. border patrol officers that stopped not only his vehicle but all the vehicles.
“(They) started looking through my car and they were putting down the seats and looking in the back in the trunk and even went into my glove box, opened it up and used the flashlight to look in behind the glove box,” he said.
“It was just very strange, the whole incident. I don’t know what they were looking for. They didn’t even have me step out of the car, I just had to put the car in neutral.”
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Steinbach said the search lasted about two to three minutes and then he was able to move on and cross back into Canada with no issues.
“I’ve never had that happen ever before,” he said.
“It was very strange and actually took me by surprise being stopped like that — not at the border, but on the state highway, I guess, on the way back, which is very strange.”
Additional checkpoints at the B.C.-U.S. border have shocked travellers recently, noting they are being stopped coming back into Canada but before the actual border check.
In a statement to Global News earlier this week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it routinely conducts inspections on outbound traffic as part of its national security mission.
“These inspections are a vital tool in apprehending wanted individuals, as well as in seizing a variety of contraband, which ultimately makes our community safer,” the statement read.
Steinbach said it did feel like an invasion of privacy because there didn’t seem to be a reason for the search. He said they didn’t ask for his phone but they did ask for his passport.
“I have a clean record,” he said.
“I don’t have any record. I have Nexus and there wasn’t anything to provoke that incident. For myself, they stopped the car behind me as well, too, and a semi-trailer that happened to be beside me as well, too. Very strange, just very strange.”
Steinbach said he has always enjoyed going to the U.S., but after that incident it made him think about what is going on south of the border and he has since stopped going.
“I’m not going to go anymore to the States unless there’s something urgent or important that I have to go down there for, but I won’t be going there any time in the near future, unfortunately,” he added.
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