New question when entering the country

LVSteve

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After our go-around landing, I observed some mystifying stuff coming through immigration. Most of the CBP officers in the booths were asking "How much cash are you bringing in?" Really? I had no clue how much was in my wallets (I have two, the US wallet and my travel wallet) so I picked a number. That seemed OK with my guy, so I moved on. The foreign visitors looked very confused, probably because they had no clue if they were being asked in dollars or in their currency. Also, many travelers these days use a card to get local currency on arrival, so quite often they are not carrying much cash.

What do y'all think is driving this question?
 
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We encountered Customs and USBP in Calgary. Nice lady asked if we had anything to declare and how was our trip.
Nothing to declare and trip was great.
She then said “welcome home” and I said “great to be back”. She smiled and we went on our way.
We had about $130 Canadian left and took it back to our local bank to convert back to US $’s.
 
We were regulars at our crossing, beyond pleasantries all we were asked is if we had anything to declare. That was going into Canada, the US side was where we were quite often grilled. They know who you are before you even get up to the house, everything is on the screen in front of them. It was odd the response my wife would notice if I was driving the car, when she drove the car she got all kinds of hassles, when I drove it was usually fairly smooth except for the odd inquiry into fruits and vegetables that was often irritating when it is repeated three times. My nickname for that particular officer was "fruits and vegetables." I was never asked how much money I had on me or was bringing back however, they would on occasion ask if we had purchased any 222's or other over the counter medications not allowed in the US, it seems there was a two bottle limit for 222's, we often brought those back for my mil, not that friends did not try to get us to bring more back, you got to draw the line somewhere.
 
It's not that new. Some countries have limits on the amount of cash you can bring in. In the US, you can bring as much as you want but have to declare it if it's $10,000 or more.
Yes, I knew there was a limit, I could not recall what. This is the first time in 28 years of travel to and from the US I've actually been asked.
 
I've never been asked about how much cash I'm bringing in, and come to think of it, the last several times I've returned from overseas travel, the CBP officers I encountered didn't ask me anything at all other than how long I'd been gone. LVSteve, what you encountered might have been a local policy, or the result of a large cash discovery in someone's luggage at that airport.
 
We were regulars at our crossing, beyond pleasantries all we were asked is if we had anything to declare. That was going into Canada, the US side was where we were quite often grilled. They know who you are before you even get up to the house, everything is on the screen in front of them. It was odd the response my wife would notice if I was driving the car, when she drove the car she got all kinds of hassles, when I drove it was usually fairly smooth except for the odd inquiry into fruits and vegetables that was often irritating when it is repeated three times. My nickname for that particular officer was "fruits and vegetables." I was never asked how much money I had on me or was bringing back however, they would on occasion ask if we had purchased any 222's or other over the counter medications not allowed in the US, it seems there was a two bottle limit for 222's, we often brought those back for my mil, not that friends did not try to get us to bring more back, you got to draw the line somewhere.
What are “222’s”?
 
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