With a duffle bag of cloths and a laptop computer, David started heading south with his newly obtained Canadian passport to start his IT consulting business. He soon found out that Canadian passport was not as convenient to travel to US as advertised. The INS or with the full name Immigration and Naturalization Services of Department of Justice no longer exist. The lack of common sense and bureaucracy of the INS was finally exposed when the agency issued student visas to a couple of 9/11 hijackers after the names of the hijackers were already widely publicized. Now, the former customs and former INS are combined to form the new Homeland Security and Border Protection Agency under the Department of Homeland Security.

Because his contract with Bud and Burrito House made him traveling onsite to pay a 2 week visit sandwiched by two weekend days off continuously, David got to travel cross the border once every two weeks. He started recording his favorite episodes of "crossing the border".

First weekend, no serious incidents; although he got sent to the interview/interrogation room, but it was a Sunday. Only one non-notable bald officer was on duty. The officer was a supervisor, as he learned later when he became a frequent guest of the office. The supervisor asked David several questions such as "Where are you going? How long are you going to stay in US? Who are you going to work for? What kind of degree have you got?" and then he let David pass.

Second weekend, flying back to Houston on Monday, David was not sent to the secondary interview room and passed the border like a normal traveler.

Third weekend, David chose to fly back to Houston on a Monday again, this time he was sent to the secondary interrogation room and ran into a officer with a name tag Curretz. Officer Curretz stared at him intensely and asked "Where are you going" "What are you going to do in Houston". When hearing the phrase "I am going to work in Houston on a project", he turned his tone into a grave and serious one and said: "Did you say you are going to work in the United States? Do you have labor certificate"? David replied "no, I don't. But I am not employed by US employer and I will be back to Canada in just two weeks". Officer Curretz appeared incensed and raised his voice: "are you trying to insult my intelligence"? David did not know how to reply therefore didn't say anything. In the silent pause, officer Curretz stared intently straight ahead with his eye lids opening as wide as possible, turning his head 135 degree left and right as if trying to see whether any of his colleagues noticed what a great border protection agent he was and whether they had heard his punch line "are you trying to insult my intelligence". Failing to catch anybody's attention, he said: "wait here" and took David's passport into other rooms to start doing some serious detective work.

While waiting for officer Curretz to return, there were an old couple of Chinese ushered into the secondary interview/interrogation room. It did not look like many agents could speak Chinese. In fact, there was only one Asian looking agent busying somewhere else, therefore a Caucasian looking agent asked David to translate for him, asking the old couple to show their return tickets.

After about 15 minutes, officer Curretz came back with David's passport and a piece of paper that wrote: "It appears that you are seeking to enter United States for unauthorized employment. You entry at this time is denied. You need more supporting documents to prove that you are not seeking permanent employment in US." With nothing else to do, and not daring to insult the intelligence of officer Curretz any further, David could only go home to get more documents. Looking at the bright side, he was happy to stay one more day at home, but before going home, he had to cancel scheduled meetings with Burrito House the next morning and ask Bud to fax him a letter to state that he was not an employee of the Burrito house, but an independent Canadian business man.

Tuesday morning, David went to the airport again with more documents to prove that he was not seeking unauthorized employment in US. When asked by another border agent at the regular check point what he was going to do in Houston, he simply answered that he was working on a project in Houston. Then he got admitted in without being sent to the secondary interview/interrogation room. Upon arrival in Houston, David had to explain to his customers that US/Canadian border is "like a box of chockalott, you never know what you are going to get".

After two weeks, David thought since his wife and daughter had never been to Houston before, it would probably be more interesting if they could come and visit him, instead of his usual back-and-forth trips.

Jade and Crystal were excited about the idea too, and since it was still in the summer holidays, they happily flew to Houston to see David. David went to the Houston IAH international airport to meet his wife and daughter and found none of them seemed to be particularly happy. Besides both being tired and a little worn out by the flight, Jade said they were questioned at the border for a much longer period of time than other passengers. Crystal was especially anxious since she could not understand why other passengers behind her were getting quicker green lights than her and her mom. Fortunately, they were not sent to the secondary interrogation room.

Jade also described that the border agent who stopped them for intense questioning suggested: in her case, she would be under heavy suspicion if her husband worked in US on business trips without a TN-1 visa. Although David did not think the border agent had a very logical legal mind, since he was legally working for his own Canadian corporation, therefore should not be under TN-1 visa (Trade NAFTA type 1 visa), he still decided to apply for a TN-1 visa, just in case some colorful chocolates decided to ask him to a TN-1 visa again, or use it against his family of Chinese looking Canadian citizens.

In his next trip after spending a weekend at home, David dug up his university diplomas and decided to apply for a TN-1 visa at the border. The TN-1 visa applications were always processed in the secondary interview/interrogation room, and David luckily ran into agent Curretz again. This time, Curretz found more than just the word "working" in the phrase "working on a project" to pick on David. He found one of the paragraphs in David's letter from Bud Westwood to be in gruesome violation of the NAFTA guideline. The paragraph stated: ". . . the contracted skilled professional would be working in the capacity of a Software Development Manager . . ." Agent Curretz asked: "what are you going to do when you work in Houston?" David answered: "I would listen to customers' business requirements, develop technical specifications based on those requirements, and then allocate the development work to different developers based on those technical specifications. Then we develop the software and conduct QA testing and deploy the system to the customers. Later they would come up with additional requirements, and we listen to those new requirements and work them into the next release of the product".

Agent Curretz started shaking his head and said: "have you being denied entrance to US before?" David said: "yes, by you a few weeks ago". Curretz felt a proud sense of accomplishment that he could defend his nation's border one more time and said: "I hate to do this to you buddy, but I am going to have to deny your entrance again. From what you described to me, you are not qualified for any NAFTA category. You have an MBA degree, and you are supposed to be a managing consultant under NAFTA. But you are going to 'listen' to your customers. A managing consultant does not listen to customers. A managing consultant is supposed to tell the customers what to do, not listening to them" he spoke his last sentence with the kind of military authority of a drill sergeant.

David was by now thoroughly entertained by this agent and thinking, he was going to say it, and he did: "are you trying to insult my intelligence"? "No, not at all" David answered calmly: "but without listening to customer requirements, I do not know what kind of software they want me to develop. Do you want me to develop a software product without listening to customer requirements?"