15

On some occasions, when a traveler goes through US customs, there are electronic self-serve kiosks or paper forms with detailed customs questions about what you are carrying (currency, goods, food, etc.), and there are statements warning about penalties for not answering truthfully.

On other occasions, there is none of the above, and no explanatory signs posted, and the customs officer simply asks, "Do you have anything to declare?" (this happened to me recently when traveling from a US territory to the US mainland) so it's not obvious what they are asking, or that there are penalties involved. Suppose somebody should have answered "Yes" but they answered "No" because they didn't understand the question, or they have never travelled before, or they didn't know or didn't remember all of the items that should be declared. In this case, it sounds like ignorance of the law could be a reasonable defense. Is it?

If customs wanted the question to be legally enforceable, in the absence of any accompanying written explanations, shouldn't they say something more like, "Do you have anything to declare under US customs code, section blah blah blah? Not answering truthfully can carry penalties and fines. If you don't understand the question, please ask."

Update:

For those wondering where my customs interaction occurred, it was at the STX airport in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands (a US territory). It's an international airport, but most outbound flights are to the US mainland. Technically, travelers leaving USVI are already in the US, but air travelers leaving the territory have to exit through US customs and immigration. Possibly it's because the USVI's borders are extra-porous so they are monitoring for illegal immigrants, and/or because USVI has certain restrictions and duties for goods going to/from the US mainland.

US Customs and Border Protection in STX used to hand out Customs Declaration forms, so it was easy to understand what to declare. Now they just ask verbally, either in some detail ("Are you carrying any food?") or as a broad question ("Do you have anything to declare?").

FlanMan
  • 1,093
  • 1
  • 10
  • 17
  • 16
    You're expected to know the law relevant to what you're doing. Besides, if you're not sure of the status of something you declare it. There's no penalty for declaring something that doesn't need to be declared. – Loren Pechtel Jun 25 '20 at 02:49
  • 13
    Ignorantia juris non excusat – ignorance of the law excuses not. – Jörg W Mittag Jun 25 '20 at 06:23
  • 2
    AFAIK, answering "yes" instead of "no" will not get you in trouble, it will just waste time. – user253751 Jun 25 '20 at 09:19
  • 9
    Or "I don't think so, but I do have X and Y and Z" (list items you think might be declarable - tobacco, alcohol, illegal drugs, big piles of cash, food or drinks, particularly valuable items) - also should not get you in trouble. – user253751 Jun 25 '20 at 12:25
  • 2
    Are you sure this was Customs rather than a USDA agricultural checkpoint? You would normally not clear customs/immigration when coming from a U.S. territory into the U.S. mainland (or vice versa) unless you transited another country on the way. (I ask because the relevant laws will be completely different for customs vs. USDA ag checkpoints, since it's completely different agencies and no international borders are being crossed.) – reirab Jun 25 '20 at 17:09
  • @reirab: actually, if you are traveling from St. Thomas (a US territory) to the US mainline, you will go through customs; the British Virgin Islands are close, and its too easy to get to St. Thomas without going through customs (and it's not like we trust the Brits...) – poncho Jun 25 '20 at 17:21
  • @poncho Hence "normally." :) There are lots of weird exceptions to all kinds of rules where U.S. territories (or former territories, for that matter) are concerned, but traveling to/from them typically doesn't require clearing customs and/or immigration. And, yeah, you can never be too careful with those Brits. :P – reirab Jun 25 '20 at 17:46
  • @poncho it's probably more like: if they allowed it then everyone who was trying to smuggle something would go via that route and not get caught – user253751 Jun 26 '20 at 10:53
  • 2
    @JörgWMittag Because ignorance of the law is not an excuse, there is an obligation to provide notice of laws that might be surprising when they apply to specific locations or actions. (Obviously, if ignorance of the law was an excuse, there would be no logic to a notice requirement. Since it isn't, there is obvious logic to such a requirement and in the US, it's a due process requirement. Absence of reasonable notice is a defense even while ignorance isn't.) – David Schwartz Jun 26 '20 at 15:54
  • "Do you have anything to declare?" "Yes, I declare bankruptcy" – user49822 Jun 26 '20 at 19:22
  • 1
    Unfortunately, such a defense is often treated as a matter of law rather than fact, when I would think a key question of fact would be whether there was adequate notice that reasonable people in the defendant's shoes would have understood their obligations. If jurors can't be convinced that they would have understood their obligations in that situation, that should justify an acquittal even if the notice would otherwise meet all statutory requirements. – supercat Jun 26 '20 at 19:47
  • 1
    @user253751 "answering "yes" instead of "no" will not get you in trouble, it will just waste time. " Quite a lot of time, like the drunk British girl who thought it was funny to say "yes, a bomb", when questioned at a Florida airport. They asked her twice to repeat herself; she did, and wound up in jail – Michael Harvey Jun 26 '20 at 23:02
  • @MichaelHarvey Well, you should only declare a bomb if you have a bomb, of course. In which case, you may hope to get a lighter sentence for declaring it than you would get for using it :) – user253751 Jun 27 '20 at 21:26
  • @supercat In theory, there are two separate defenses possible here. One would be lack of statutorily-required notice, the other would be lack of due process due to factually inadequate notice. This is what prevents hellhole towns from having weird town-wide parking limitations they use just to fleece people passing through the town. – David Schwartz Jun 27 '20 at 22:44
  • @DavidSchwartz: Unfortunately, I don't think juries are instructed to consider their own ability or inability to understand the notice in relation to whether the notice as adequate. In some cases, notices would use specialized terminology which the prosecution could show the defendant should have understood even though ordinary people would not, but the burden should be on the prosecutor to show such knowledge. Otherwise, the fact that a jury wouldn't understand a notice should constitute reasonable doubt as to whether the defendant understood it either. – supercat Jun 28 '20 at 17:15
  • @MichaelHarvey Since people carrying bombs tend not to declare them, I bet customs found it funny as well. Good story to tell your kids when you come home from work. "You won't believe what happened today at work ... " – gnasher729 Jun 28 '20 at 18:11
  • @poncho it's actually because the US Virgin Islands is a separate customs territory, as are "American Samoa, Wake Island, Midway Islands, Kingman Reef, Johnston Island, and the island of Guam." See 19 USC 1401(h) – phoog Jul 03 '20 at 01:11
  • @reirab see my previous comment. The USVI is a separate customs territory. The tariffs there are different, and items imported from the USVI to the US customs territory may be subject to duty under certain circumstances. See 19 CFR Part 7. – phoog Jul 03 '20 at 01:17
  • @user253751 it's also because people might be smuggling things from the USVI to the US. See my previous two comments. – phoog Jul 03 '20 at 01:18
  • FlanMan: "Technically, travelers leaving USVI are already in the US": that is true for immigration law under the definition at 8 USC 1101(a)(38), but not for customs law under the definition at 19 USC 1401(h). – phoog Jul 03 '20 at 01:23

4 Answers4

32

The answer has two parts depending on how you get here. Airline answer: Any such question by a CBP officer is merely a last-chance option to supplement the response you gave on the declaration form. The form asks a series of specific questions which are difficult to misunderstand (if you speak English), you say yes or no, and fill in applicable details. If you remember that you put an apple in your luggage, you can verbally amend the declaration. It is not necessary or practical to recite the statutory, regulatory and case law authority to ask these questions. As I recall, the electronic version asks the same questions. All versions of the form that I have encountered over the decades have included the perjury warning. If you had an alternative experience for you did not fill in a customs declaration form, that would be unusual, and a significant failure by the CBP officer(s).

Land-border answer: you are right. In this case (when no customs declaration form is filled out), they rely on every person's obligation to know and comply with the law. You are required to declare the $12,000 cash that you are bringing back, and you cannot plead "I didn't know I had to declare that cash".

You can always make suggestions for service-improvement to the Dept. of Homeland Security.

user6726
  • 214,947
  • 11
  • 343
  • 576
  • 1
    There are experimental programs (were, last year) in which you do not fill in the arrival card from an international flight, and only make a verbal declaration to the officer. You answer about your address, moral turpitude, and Nazis at checkin, but not customs questions. – Michael Homer Jun 25 '20 at 05:09
  • 4
    @MichaelHomer I don't think I've seen the Nazi question on US immigration forms since 2012 (or rather: "I did Nazi that question!" - sorry!) – Dai Jun 25 '20 at 07:17
  • 8
    Do they still have the question that goes something like, "While in the USA, do you intend to overthrow the Government?" Apparently, John Lennon answered it with, "Sole purpose of visit". – Oscar Bravo Jun 25 '20 at 11:32
  • 1
    @OscarBravo It was when I last flew to the USA which was in 2013. As if anyone with real intent was going to say yes to that one ;-) – Tonny Jun 25 '20 at 12:20
  • 1
    @Tonny True, though governments regularly seem to forget that criminals by definition do not follow the law... – Austin Hemmelgarn Jun 25 '20 at 14:53
  • 7
    It's not about criminals following the law, it's about having an excuse to kick them out without a lot of judicial rigamarole – JasonB Jun 25 '20 at 17:19
  • 3
    @OscarBravo When Manchester United football team were entering the old Czechoslovakia, for a vital European cup-tie, circa 1969, during the cold war - the iron-curtain protocols were rigid. Each player and member of staff was given a form to complete, which asked the usual things - name, dob, occupation etc. The team humourist - Glaswegian, Pat Crerand entered his name as "James Bond", and occupation as "spy". The communist border officials were not amused, and the whole team experienced a lengthy delay while Mr Crerand was interrogated. – WS2 Jun 26 '20 at 15:33
10

it sounds like ignorance of the law could be a reasonable defense. Is it?

No.

I believe that is fundamental to many systems of law.

RedGrittyBrick
  • 1,092
  • 7
  • 13
2

I would slightly amend some of the other answers here: ignorance of the law is not a defense, but it can be a mitigating factor in sentencing. If you intended to follow the law but were unaware of something that a normal person might not know of, you could use that to sugggest a decrease (or elimination) of the penalty. It doesn't mean you didn't commit the offense, but if you took no efforts to conceal (whatever it was) and it is sufficiently unusual that a person might reasonably not know about it needing to be declared, then a judge might go easier on you. It is usually at their discretion, though, so certainly don't rely on it!

That said, particularly on an airline odds are you've been asked about all of the relevant things, and typically when there are common things people aren't thinking of, there will be signs - for example, when pot became legal in Canada a few weeks before I traveled there (not for that reason!), there were at least a dozen different places that signs were posted reminding travelers they shouldn't bring any pot back to the US, even if they're going to a pot-friendly state, as it's federally illegal.

Joe
  • 1,127
  • 8
  • 18
-1

Your obligation to know and follow the law is independent of this question- it is just a friendly reminder.

Imagine you pull a gun and line it up on someone, and a police officer says 'you know you're not allowed to shoot someone' - you seriously assume you can shoot then, and claim his question wasn't legally binding because he didn't cite the respective law?

Aganju
  • 211
  • 1
  • 5