Obviously I wasn't there, but when you describe it like that, it sounds like a badly judged attempt at humour by officer.

Shall I file a complaint to the airport? Maybe, if you don’t mind risking a more challenging experience than what sounds like a clumsy attempt at humour at the border next time.

I certainly hope it was (bad) humour, but sadly some CBP officers are just plain stupid. Are you a US citizen or a visitor?

Whatever you do, filing a complaint to the airport is not a good use of your time because those officers do not work for the airport; they work for the US government (and the airport is run by a joint venture between two state governments). @jcaron there are of course other possibilities besides "US citizen" and "visitor."

@phoog Yes I was simplifying. But my guess is that unless one is a US citizen (or maybe a LPR), complaining (to CBP, not the airport, of course) is probably risky.

@jcaron in theory, of course, it shouldn't be risky, but I've certainly heard stories that suggest that an unscrupulous CBP officer can add something to a traveler's record that leads to their being routinely referred to secondary inspection. I am pretty sure that at least a couple of these stories have concerned US citizens, so it's probably wise to be careful.

How is this a question relevant to travel? "This weird thing happened to me, who else, huh?"

@phoog The big difference is that the US citizen must at some point be let in, even if inconvenienced, and US citizens can also use the courts to (try to) get relief, if it comes to that. For the others it can quickly turn to an entry refusal if they want to, and there isn't much recourse.

@jcaron true, but the last thing I want is to have a 2-hour secondary inspection ordeal at the end of a transatlantic flight, and CBP is sufficiently opaque (justified by claims of national security grounds) that US citizens often can't get relief from something such as having to spend time in secondary on a regular basis. It's difficult to know even how to draft a complaint to file with the court, how to describe the relief sought, etc.

@jcaron Yeah, had I been a US citizen, or even an LPR without significant absences from the US, I would've told the officer to piss off (not using those words obviously). Anyone else had better me completely subservient and then raise a formal complaint afterwards

@Nij It's "weird thing happened to me at the 13th busiest airport in the world (from 2023 stats) while I'm trying to pass through customs".

Today I learned there exist border officers with humour. Until today, I thought that border officers and body guards were among those classes of jobs that do not have such.

@gerrit I think we expect them not to exhibit it when interacting with travelers, they should be "all business". You expect them to chat and joke with each other, but rarely with travelers passing through the checkpoint.

@Barmar With people not subject to immigration restrictions they can be more informal. I've been able to exchange jokes with more than one UK Border Force officer (as someone with EUSS stauts)

@Crazydre My experience is mostly with security (TSA in the US), not border control, so immigration is not a relevant issue, but I assume they're similar attitudes. I think they're more likely to respond to chit-chat than initiate it.

I do not understand why other people are pushing back against OP. The officer was harassing OP. Not very consequential or serious form of harassment, sure -- but lecturing someone about how they spend their personal life is harrasment.

I guess you were at the wrong border(s) bad dum tss

@Barmar chitchat is a common technique to judge whether the person you're interviewing is nervous or trying to hide something. US immigration inspectors definitely do this, though not (in my experience) at JFK or Newark airports when the lines are long. But driving into New York from Ontario at smaller border crossings I have more than once been asked questions such as "what were you doing in Turkey," (prompted by the presence in my US passport of some stamps from Turkey, none particularly recent).

@AgnishomChattopadhyay It really depends on the tone that was used.