What are CBP agents doing when deciding whether to allow a US lawful permanent resident to enter the US by car?

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Accepted answer

A US Citizen just needs to confirm their identity. However, since as an LPR you don't have an inherent right of entry, the CBP officer needs to confirm, on top of your identity, that you're still in fact an LPR and that no further inspection is needed before admitting you.

For starters, they need to check your previous exits and entries to make sure that you haven't spent more than 1 year out of the country (in this case a REP would be required) or more than 2 years out of the country (in this case a SB1 visa would be required). There are some links in this answer and comments to it.

They may want to check that you're not entering and leaving the country just to circumvent the above time limits (e.g.: that you're not entering for a week every half a year to avoid resetting your citizenship clock, or every year to avoid the REP/SB1 thing).

There may be additional checks that I can only speculate about that US citizens wouldn't need: cross-checks against immigration enforcement databases (ICE/USCIS), potentially maybe checking some crime databases (conviction of certain crimes may lead to invalidating your LPR status), and what's not.

As mentioned in the comments, these are very likely automated. But when entering by land, the CBP has no prior knowledge of your impending arrival (as opposed to sea or air travel, where the carriers provide the manifest and details about the passengers, ahead of time). So all the information needed cannot be pre-fetched from the various databases and needs to be accessed online while you're there, waiting. This takes time, even in the digital age.

There's also a customs check component, but it's no different for LPRs compared to anyone else.

If for whatever reason necessary information is not currently available, you may be referred to a "secondary inspection". This is true for anyone, not just LPRs. Same happens if there are some suspicions, or if there's missing documentation (e.g.: a US citizen arriving without evidence of their citizenship). Once all the necessary details are confirmed, the person would then be either admitted or denied entry, or may even be arrested (if, for example, there's an outstanding arrest warrant).

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