I had a pretty nasty experience at an inland border checkpoint in Texas.

The first time I’d gone through this checkpoint, a woman asked me questions about my immigration status which I answered, but I refused a couple personal questions, things like what I was doing and where I was going. She seemed caught off guard, but waved me along without commenting on it.

The second time around I did a little more homework beforehand on what types of questions I was obligated to answer, and as it turned out, the answer was none of them. So I went for it just out of curiosity, assuming that I might experience a similar level of professionalism, maybe pulled aside and have a drug dog go around the vehicle, no biggie. Very wrong.

The first officer asked the usual of line of questions, and I just told him I wasn’t interested in having a conversation or answering questions today. I could tell by the change in his voice that this immediately struck a nerve, and he asked me over and over again why. No answer I gave would satisfy him and he just kept asking the same question over and over, so I chose to ignore him and focused on the road ahead of me until I was given a lawful order to work with and progress the encounter.

He shouted in through the window that I was holding up his line, I guess in an attempt to guilt trip me into compliance, but the ball had been in his court for a while now and the choices he had were to take no for an answer and either wave me through or send me aside for inspection. He asked me how I’d like to see the inside of the building behind him, to which I called his bluff and responded “sure”.

“IF YOU TAKE OFF, WE WILL DRAG YOU OUT OF THIS VEHICLE AND PUT YOU ON THE GROUND. DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

I sat and quietly pondered this violent fantasy scenario he’d concocted in his head as I resumed ignoring him, and he eventually waved me aside to the inspection area. It took a bit longer than I expected it to, but I was finally through the first half of the checkpoint.

I received the same series of questions from two more officers while I waited for the dog to finish up with the vehicle in front of me, and they threatened to keep me there all day if I didn’t comply, to which I responded without much concern. I was asked again why I wouldn’t play along, and I kept it simple this time and explained their rights and my rights. The officer went away and I heard him say something about me being “still adamant”, as if getting me to answer their stupid immigration questions was a game to them that they were actively losing.

A few minutes later, a person who I’ll assume was the supervisor came up and began trying to provoke and antagonize me and push the same questions through the window to a point that he also received the silent treatment, and I let him know that I would only be responding to lawful orders from that point on.

He came back some time later and told me my name and my address in a fashion as though trying to intimidate me, or maybe he was trying to play up a petty victory by answering one of their own questions that I refused to answer earlier using a means that I really had no grounds or interest in objecting to, as long as they were acting within the law. He must’ve still been trying to get a rise out of me, and he waited for a response that never came.

He finally waved me through, but insisted that I only drive away if I was a US citizen, forcing me to answer their question through my actions even though they already had an answer. Now it was my turn to be petty. I explained the predicament that their framing of the instruction put me in, and refused to move along until they’d issued the order in a way that didn’t force me to surrender my 5th amendment right in the process. I eventually got what I wanted.

This is now my second worst encounter with law enforcement. I don’t have a criminal record, and I don’t go out looking for trouble. I just prefer to be left alone. Could it be the piercings?