On the other hand, if somebody said "I'm here for terrorism" and the immigration officer laughed that off, imagine the shitstorm if that person turns out to be a terrorist.

For the individual employee the cost of wasting someone's time by escalating the case and detaining them is zero, the potential cost of letting someone slip by is realistically tiny but potentially huge

> I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for saying "I'm here for terrorism"

Its like those stupid questions on US immigration forms, e.g.

"Do you intend to engage in the United States in Espionage ?" or "Did you ever order, incite or otherwise participate in the persecution of any person ?"

It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who should answer yes will really answer yes ?

Might as well just turn up at the immigration desk, slap your wrists down on the counter and invite them to handcuff you .... why bother with the form !

Believe it or not it’s a question on the pre-clearance form for travel to the US: ”are you or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation” - I always wondered what the rationale for that was