I Have A Permanent Record
Years ago I was doing a job for Freightliner Trucks. I was filming some of their trucks in various locations for trade shows.
The people I worked with were wonderful. It was a great gig.
I was shooting in the Columbia Gorge when I got a call. They wanted me to go to Canada in a few days and shoot a particular truck that was designed for Canadian highways. As I recall the truck was a bit narrower for the roads up there.
I have worked in Canada (and internationally) before and I know the rules. You need a customs broker for your gear so you can get it in and out of the country with no problems. We’d also need work permits for the time we're shooting there.
I was assured this would be taken care of.
We took the ferry over to Victoria. We had a semi truck and trailer and a van full of equipment. The crew was a mix of Freightliner employees, myself and the DP, who were freelance.
The DP and I got some shots of the truck coming off the ferry that we could use for an open. The staff person for Freightliner went to Customs and Immigration to get everything cleared. She met the Customs Broker there. Everything was cool with the gear and the truck.
I soon found out that work permits were never issued. Later I heard some excuses about being told we didn’t really need them, which is absolutely wrong!
The Immigration Official is a Prick
I will spare you a lot of details about the immigration guy who was in a bad mood but he shut us down, as he had the right to do. When I found out there were no work permits I was really pissed. Apparently someone had said “don’t worry, if there’s a problem Kelley can talk his way out of it and get it fixed” or something like that.
No I can’t. Not when it comes to international laws. If I had been aware that we had no permits I would never have gotten on the ferry.
The upshot was, the Immigration fellow looked the other way when it came to the Freightliner employees as, they were employed by a large international corporation.
My DP and I as freelancers had our passports seized and were basically put on the next ferry back to the U.S.
You know when you’re growing up and people always say, if you do such and such and get caught it will go on your “permanent record”? We all laughed because there’s no such thing as a “permanent record”. It’s just something adults used to scare you into submission.
We were wrong!
Officially we were denied entrance into Canada. And that do go on my record. Whenever I travel internationally I am detained. I have to explain what happened in Canada and how it was the fault of my employers for the screw up, even though it's ultimately my fault, as I didn’t check to make sure everything was straightened out before I left for Canada.
Some will say that I should have gone after my employer and made them fix the whole mess as they have lawyers on staff and they’re a big company.
Lay Offs…
An important side bar to this story was soon after this all happened the entire video department was laid off and the department eliminated. There was suddenly no one there I could take this up with and no one who could help me take it to the proper department to try and have this rectified. (Whether Freightliner would have cared and done the right thing, who knows?)
To this day, whenever I am detained I calmly explain what happened and let the officials know that I am not entering their country to work (unless I have the proper paperwork of course). It is a huge hassle but so far I have never been denied entry to a foreign country.
A Royal Pain In The Ass
Actually I always have a harder time returning to the U.S. Our customs and immigration people are always bigger pricks to me than the customs and immigration people in other countries. Always!
I still encourage students and filmmakers to travel if they have the opportunity to work in a foreign country on a project. But I always tell them my story and make sure they know how important it is to have the proper paperwork if you’re going to do it.
I don’t want anyone else to have to put up with what I do whenever I travel. This event took place well over twenty years ago and I’m still dealing with the effects.
Is there a moral to this story? Not really. But I do warn others that when you are told by an adult, “This will go on your permanent record…”
There actually is a permanent record.
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Originally posted on May 13, 2022