I encountered a strange interrogation at El Salvador International Airport by U.S. federal agents.
As I stepped off my Copa flight from Panama City (PTY) to San Salvador (SAL), I was met by men in plainclothes on the jet bridge. Every passenger was stopped.
Two agents spoke to me. One asked to see my passport. After handing it over, he pulled out his mobile phone and took a picture of it. As he handed it back, I noticed a badge from the U.S. Embassy. The conversation then went like this:
Agent 1: Where are you going?
Me: Los Angeles.
Agent 1: Why were you in Panama?
Me: Transit.
Agent 2: From where?
Me: Ft. Lauderdale.
Agent 2: Huh?
Me: Mileage ticket.
Agent 1: What kind of work do you do?
Me: I consult on the best use of credit card points and frequent flyers.
Agent 1: And you fly from Florida to Los Angeles via Central America?
Me: Actually I was in Brazil too.
Agent 1: When?
Me: Last night.
Agent 2: I’m lost.
Me: Check liveandletsfly.com. That’s the blog I write for.
Agent 1: That’s cool.
Agent 2: Do you have proof of being in all those places?
Me: No.
Agent 2: Ok.
Me: So why are you here? What do you want? What are you looking for?
Agent 1: Just doing our job.
Me: Anything else?
Agent 1: Nope. Have a good day, sir.
Had this been in the United States, I would not have cooperated – I don’t engage in small talk with border agents. But I was not in the USA, I was in El Salvador. In a country in which Nayib Bukele rules with an iron first.
As for why U.S. agents were interviewing passengers on a flight between Panama and San Salvador, I have no idea. Hopefully to help fight human trafficking or the illicit drug trade. I understand that El Salvador and the USA work together on a number of issues.
But I’m not comfortable with U.S. agents hassling folks like this, even if their motives are praiseworthy. Dragnets are ripe for abuse and questioning passengers in this manner seems designed to create pretenses for further intrusion.
That’s one of the oddest encounters I have ever read. U.S. agents in Central America confronting an American who was not even transiting to the U.S. I would not have taken kindly to this at all. But yeah, not a place to get into a confrontation.
I agree with you about US agents scrutinizing people in El Salvador , they don’t have any fucking business doing that. Who authorized them is beyond me for this is a sovereign country , no outsiders have jurisdiction in it .
As far as President Bukele as you say governing with a iron hand , that is a bunch of BS. He is the only president in 4 decades to bring stability to the country , for that is being accuse ss a dictator , the US always agrees with the corrupt governments that were before Bukele!!!!!
Bukele is a fuc**** moron and dictator corrupt , worst than previous presidents
Bukele HAS to respect some agreements with the USA, he’s simply a showbiz clown, seated and supported by the army and some richer man than him. And followed by large quantities of close (an tiny) minded people.
Viva Bukele!!!!! He made the country safe. Now we are starting a multinational law firm, where as before, when I came there with my wife (a citizen who fled El Salvador due to instability) we stayed within the safety of San Salvador. Now we can expand to San Miguel and La Libertad, and my wife’s father no longer is extorted on bus rides for his belt, jewelry, money, etc., by gangs. Leftists need to leave their soft-on-crime mindset in LA, or NY.
Were they Border Control or DEA?
They only had “US Embassy” badges on.
They were probably impostors because no such thing exists.
Many, many US embassy employees are CIA operatives. So, my guess is they were looking for someone. Probably an American!
Fair they they flagged you. Nothing weird about it at all. It’s not necessarily Cabatoge but it looks dumb. They want to make sure you’re not smuggling
Everyone was stopped, not just me.
Unfortunately, your travels sometimes fit the profile of a drug mule.
I think I could have better understood them stopping me individually than stopping everyone on the flight.
They stop everyone to see your reaction. Nervous, sweat. Watch
‘to catch a smuggler” on National Geographic TV.
You really think this was all about me?
What if…
Agent 1: Where are to going?
Matthew: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?!
I would have asked for a selfie with Matthew or, if he thought his hair was messed up, then an autograph.
i agree. on foreign soil cooperate as best as possible, no sense making yourself miserable in a brightly lit office for half a day. In the US? Name rank and serial number only, it’s all on the documents.
I have had a very similar interaction before boarding a flight in Panama City to the United States. US agents were walking around and harassing people, including my friend Peruvian-American friends. We were coming from the DR
I’m going to keep an eye out for you in a future episode of Banged Up Abroad
My question is: how does any US agency have jurisdiction over a flight between Panama and El Salvador? The flight doesn’t even cross any US territory. So, I don’t see how this is even legal. If they are working with Salvadoran agencies on a case, then the Salvadoran authorities should be in the lead.
Exactly! And what’s with taking photos of people’s passports? What happens to those image files? I don’t know what kind of data protection legislation US govt agents are bound by, but, as a national of another country who isn’t even en route to the USA (as was the case with many/most of Matthew’s fellow pax), I would have seriously considered saying that I would be happy to answer any questions as long as they’re asked in the presence of a consular official from my country of citizenship (or probably another EU member that happens to have an embassy in SAL).
Finally somebody found a very smart answer to a situation like this everybody should take a note in case that you encounter a situation like this because you should know you’re rights
You are so ignorant wrong about President Bukele ruling with an iron fist. This man has brought the only loving changes to this country. You obviously are up with the past and present of this country. It’s really concerning to have US agents taking pictures of your passport and even stoping you to interrogate you. This is clearly a violation showing that the two governments are not in friendly mode because of the weeks ago US embassador intrusions in their assembly disruption plans.
Aren’t you a bit troubled by his plan to fire judges over 60 years of age?
Crazy. Presumably they couldn’t do anything to you if you did not answer their questions, but probably would have had their El Salvadorian colleagues detain you long enough to miss your flight.
As far as “Had this been in the United States, I would not have cooperated”.. unfortunately, you again have to be willing to miss your flight due to a short detainment
Assessing the situation is key. In this case, Matthew acted in his own best interest. He could have said “I’ve got my rights, I refuse to answer based on my rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution, which is valid in El Salvador, since El Salvador is a small country that many people have never heard of…”
Years ago, during the Pinochet era, I was stopped getting off a plane and photographed, along with many other passengers. It was just a 2 second delay. I did not resist.
It’s funny when people show their ignorance.
El Salvador held the world surfing tournament this year, is the first country in all the American continent to adapt Bitcoin as their second currency, it also just acquired its own airline that is accepting Bitcoin to purchase your ticket and buy in the country or while in flight, not to mention more but it has the only international airport larger than any other in the region with capacity to land any large commercial and non commercial plane.
You’re obviously out date needing upgrades.
I feel like there was a thread on Flyertalk (Copa or Central America travel section) that dealt with this same issue about US agents being on a jet bridge in PTY. A lot of people dismissed it as bogus, but I guess the OP was right.
Trying to logically make sense of this, I think a few things are at play:
1. Transiting SAL is easy and lots of flights are bound for the USA
2. With fairly easy entry restrictions, and no real exit immigration, a dangerous and unfortified Southern border with Columbia across the Darien Gap, and a canal that is essentially “international territory,” Panama is an easy country to enter if one is undocumented or a fleeing refugee
3. Because of 1 & 2, the Salvadoran Government has allowed USEMB staff to search for people transiting SAL from PTY who may potentially be refugees bound for the USA to stop them before they can make a legal claim upon arrival in the USA.
Embassy staff aren’t trained to stop international drug trafficking, but they are trained to interview potential visitors and immigrants to the USA.
Your theory really makes a lot of sense.
What I’m curious about is if an airline could be held liable for flying someone to the USA without a visa/ESTA if the person intends to declare refugee status.
I am totally 100% completely lost about this ‘theory’ on what these guys are doing there. Any single country south of the Bravo river REQUIRES a USA visa….and ofc these days also a covid test AND SOON a covid vax cert. what more controls do they want? Something else is going on and its not refugee or anything like that. I would actually expected bukele to be combative to this type of ‘cooperation’
You should have flashed your Covid Vax card, told them you were CDC, there to validate that any undocumented aliens passing through were wearing masks, social distancing and were getting their covid vax, being quarantined for 14 days before illegally crossing into the US. Oh, that’s right, Sleepy Joe’s puppeteers don’t care.
Team America World Police springs to mind.
A quarter of a million people PER MONTH are walking across our southern border and the Feds are putting a priority on questioning airline passengers in El Salvador.
*like*
also, Canada: no dice
* like *
As a non-US citizen, I’m intrigued by your statement that you don’t engage with US border officials. Why is that and what do you if questioned?
I don’t tolerate questioning on U.S. soil, especially when the agents have all the info in front of them and have already deeply vetted me (in order to give me Global Entry). If I get an arrogant border guard who wants to quiz me for my odd collection of passport stamps, I figure he is going to send me to secondary screening anyway, so I simply politely but firmly refuse to answer his questions so that I can get my secondary screening over with.
Now mind you, I may answer some questions, but I don’t entertain a game of 20 questions. This is all a bit moot, as I have not endured such questioning since I got Global Entry 5-6 years ago (but used to get questioning all the time).
Some border agents are very nice. Many are rude jerks who hassle people to compensate for their own insecurities.
GE will not prevent you from getting that extremely thorough screening. My spouse and I were returning from 3 week trip Asia. The spouse received the “X” on the paper that GE machines spit out. So we were directed to special screening. We had multiple stuffed animals from staying at 4 Conrad hotels. Plus we had about 20 SD cards. They practically strip searched us. We thought they suspected us of making kiddie porn. Eventually after 90 minutes of searching everything on us and in our bags, they let us leave.
I am uncomfortable with government agents stopping anyone just because they fit a profile. That’s very dangerous. There would be no issues with drugs if the government stopped perpetrating the war on drugs that says government can tell you what you can and can’t put into your own body. There would be zero reason for people to traffic drugs if drugs could be bought like alcohol at a liquor store. There would be zero gang activity because there would be no funding available to gangs. There would be less human trafficking because there wouldn’t be the drug trade for these people to hide behind and there would be better border controls (cartels pay off politicians and border patrol). There wouldn’t need to be security profiling if western countries stopped giving out student visas to Arab or south Asian Muslim men. Problem solved.
Federal agents are attached to embassies all over the world. They may have received non-specific intelligence that they were following up on.
El Salvador has changed since Bukele was elected
I live in San Salvador. I am an American. Truthfully, I have never experienced US agents questioning anyone, but it’s not right that US police would question foreign nationals outside US territory. I do understand you are an American, but I’m sure many on the plane had no need to recognize US jurisdiction. Sad that democracy has taken so many steps backward under Nayib.
Democracy just means slavery by the majority of the minority. It doesn’t mean rights will be respected since 50.1% decides the rights people have. Democracy can be no different than communism or dictatorship in its outcomes.
i fly pretty heavily just for leisure using award tickets and always feel anxiety about encountering border agents because each time i do get questioned, they just don’t understand. just came back from a trip flying LAX-HND in ANA 777 J then connecting HND-LHR in ANA 777 F and got questioned COUNTLESS times “are you flying to London, right” with perplexed faces but luckily i think i got away with it just fine cuz it was japan. had it been another country, i think i would’ve gotten some real hard questions like when i get the dreaded SSSS
Get over yourself mate. There are people all over the world starving and you’re not comfortable you poor darling. Better still, instead of getting over yourself, give your self an almighty upper-cut
If it’s for the good of Our citizens, if the agents are working to protect both countries from terrorism, drug dealers, human trafficking, …etc. I wouldn’t feel bad to ID myself, I haven’t done nothing, I’m a good person, why you don’t assist the agents with anything they ask you to do. I would be so glad to help them, to make it easy for them.
Everyone was interviewed, but you were interrogated? C’mon, you were asked questions like anyone else. Less drama
I wouldnt talk to them. They carry 0 weight outside of their jurisdiction.
I was stopped in tijuana Mexico by the Mexican national guard coming back from Guadalajara… took my phone added my whatsapp to his whatsapp through the whatsapp option and read all my messages well attempted to since most of them were in English, looked through all my pictures even private ones n I had no say made me go squat in the bathroom with a female agent pushing me to say I had drugs inside of me or else they would take me to the xray machines after finding nothing .. they asked why I traveled so much and me asking if it was illegal to travel .. I didn’t fight n answered because I was scared of the crooked cops n after 2 hrs of nothing they had to let me go but ya ill never allow anyone to do that to me especially because I have nothing to be scared of .. I hate that stuff like this happens …
I’ve been profiled i the US and SV, sons of b’s. at SC airport, (dual nationality) with docs. if i didn’t have a DUI I would have lost my flught for nothing. someone else with similar name was in the no fly list. but why not get me when i entered they stopped me when leaving.