Wearing in my new Google-sponsored Visa

So after about 3 hours of my departure by bus from Monterrey, I arrived at the border and got ready to enter the US with my brand new visa. I knew beforehand that the officers at the border are way pickier than the ones at the airports (I guess they deal with tougher crowd), but this guy really made me sweat it.

When I gave him my passport opened on my spankin' new visa, he looked at it skeptically, then looked back at me and said, "So... You've got your documents?" I wasn't expecting that at all. "Um...", I hesitated. "Sure... What do you need?" So he asked: "What do you have?" "Crap", I thought. I had given most of the documents to my wife so she wouldn't have any problems, and I wasn't expecting to have to show anything at the border. I fumbled in my bag and said "I have the offer letter..." and handed it to him.

He read it carefully and started asking typical questions about the job, which then led to "So, you've got a degree in Computer Science or something...", and I proudly replied "Yup", but then "You have your title with you to prove that?" Jay-sus... My title?? I never travel with it, precisely because it has no validity for the US government. That's what the cedula is for, and I handed it to him, but this bozo said "you really need your title. I can't look at this little card and know you have a degree".

So then I started to get a bit frustrated. He obviously had not seen a cedula before, so I explained that I had to get that because my title has no validity for them, and that in all my travels as a TN, they've never asked to see my title. "Well, they have not been doing their jobs right" Son of a... "Does this say your degree?" he asked while holding my cedula up as if it was a Blockbuster membership. "Yes... Right there... Ingeniería en Tecnologías Computacionales. That is Bachelor in Engineering in Computer Science" and then he said "My spanish is not very good, so I can't verify that" Argh! I just stared at him in disbelief and said, trying to keep my temper "The title is a huge and priceless document. I never travel with it and the cedula has always been what proves my degree to CBP officers..." He seemed to notice my frustration and honesty, because he just said "Give me a minute" and he took the cedula and walked away.

A few minutes later, he walked back and said "Seems like I was wrong" and I couldn't help but exclaim "Good!" He said "You've already shown your title at the consulate..." Finally. "Right! They've already verified all this" Duh. That's what the visa is. Rookie. So then we were getting somewhere. He entered my info in the computer, took my picture, but as he was about to stamp my passport, he hesitated and said "Lemme just verify something..." and walked off again.

When he came back, he sighed and said "Bad news". "What?", I asked, trying to hide my nervousness. "My boss uses Yahoo. So you're screwed." I let out a relieved laugh and then he just told me to pay the $6 fee and I was good to go. Ka-ching, stamp, success.

PS. I'm currently about 150 miles from Houston and decided to try out the posting-via-email feature in Blogger. Let's see how it goes.