What is the aim and purpose of having NGOs in a country?

What is the purpose of custom officers at a border to ask a traveller what their purpose is to visit a country?

• Is it only to check that they have the right visa, and to double check with IT registers what is on file? For example if a traveller says business (or pleasure), and the officer says what kind of business (or pleasure)? Who is the officer to decide what kind of business (or pleasure) is legitimate or not? And if the traveller enters the country for non-legit purposes, he/she will not be the one disclosing it to a customs officer. The practice of asking seems out of date, and something in connection with when custom officers had a different kind of authority in the 18 or 19 hundred when they did not have IT systems and registers, and could stop a traveller from entering a country if they did not like him or her. What is your take on it?

• Answer:

  As pointed out, Immigration and customs officers are not the same thing and have different objectives. An immigration officer wants to determine if you are legally authorized to enter the country and (depending on the country) if you will be leaving on or before your permission to be in that country expires. A customs officer wants to determine if you are bringing any prohibited items into the country. So let's think about why each officer might ask you what your purpose is in visiting the country: An immigration officer gets some information just from how you answer the question.  For example, you might say "to visit family" but when he follows up with "what family members and where do they live?" an inability to answer the question might indicate you in fact are not entering for that reason.  Remember that the 20th 9/11 hijacker was denied entry to the United States because an immigration officer grew suspicious with his answers to these kinds of questions.  At least on the United States, one of the things immigration officers are trying to determine is if a person is entering the country on a tourist visa but in fact has no intention of leaving (this is one of the biggest sources of illegal immigration into the United States...far more than people just crossing the border illegally from Mexico).Many people enter on student visas but then never leave... On the other hand, a customs officer might have a different need to ask the same question.  If you are returning to the country, he might be trying to determine if you owe duty (taxes) on what you bought out of the country and are bringing back in...and did you declare things that seem reasonable and appropriate on your customs declaration.  If you say you are entering on business, he might ask what commercial samples or goods you have with you (goods have to be declared).  If you are a tourist coming from certain countries to visit, this might prompt further questions.  For example, in the United States, visitors from Africa and South America frequently bring wooden items as gifts for family which are illegal to bring in due to the possibility the items have insects that pose a risk to the United States agriculture industry.  There are even goods legal in some places that are not permissible in the United States.  Not talking about illegal drugs here, but things like cuban cigars and even the "kinder" chocolate balls made in Germany (and sold at the Frankfurt Airport) which are illegal to bring into the US because the little toys inside are classified as a choking hazard in the US. I agree with your assessment that a person who is doing something illegal is unlikely to tell the truth when asked these questions.  Rather it is HOW they answer that helps the customs or immigration officer decide whether more questions and or searches are warranted...