SENTRI Border Crossing With Darrell Graham

Earlier we talked about border crossing with Darrell Graham and one of the main points discussed was SENTRI, and since it is a very important topic to discuss we called him once again so he can give us all the information that everyone needs to know either if they already have a it or are planning to get it.

When he got SENTRI for himself and his family Darrell noticed that there are rules and regulations that are given to you when enrolling and that you only see how important they are and all the little nuances that come with them once you start crossing in a regular basis.

The first thing Darrell would tell anyone is that “As a trusted traveler you are an example of someone who is gonna cross the border and pay attention and obey the rules” so it is very important that you go over them very carefully so you can be able to cross the border and do everything correctly. One of the main tips he gives is to always have your documents ready to show, have all the windows down, not using the cellphone, wearing a cap and sunglasses, listen to music with earphones or the radio too loud when you get to the officer. It may seem like common sense, but a lot of people do it during the time they spend in line and forget about them by the time they get to the officer and that can make the process slower for everyone and even get them into trouble.

Another regulation that people forget a lot is the kind of stuff you can carry in your car at the moment of crossing, things like agricultural items, meat, soil samples and animals, even alcohol is restricted to a specific number by week, and a lot of people don’t know it or forget about it.

The easier you make the officers work by following all these rules and regulations, the faster the crossing for everyone and better the experience for you and your family.

Darrell also gives some advice to people looking to signup for SENTRI, one of the most important ones is the Address, a lot of people use their mailing address as their physical address, this can lead to a lot of troubles because it only takes some else to make a bad decision and getting that mailing address flagged and people can lose their SENTRI because of that and without them being the ones at fault, so always try to use your real address and if you are already using it, it would be a good idea to change it!

One last advice given by Darrell is that some SENTRI users tend to carry non users and drop them when they get close to the border so they can cross using the pedestrian line, that is a mistake, you can lose your privileges because of that, the best approach is to drop them in a point that is not so close to the border so you don’t alter the line’s flow and to make everyone carry their stuff, because having stuff that is not yours in your car while crossing can give you troubles too.