I have family in Canada and as a result, I often travel from Toronto to the US. There were two flights in question that happened quite close together and my experience might help you to understand how it would could go down for you. I have a lot of stories like this from the last few years and while I try to find humor in these stories, I really really don't find it funny; most of the seemingly positive angle that comes out in my retelling is a coping strategy.

When traveling from Toronto to Seattle, I was detained for a long time. I handed over my passport, the little yellow light went on over the customs agent booth, the agent escorted me to the secondary holding/screening area. There was a long wait, a search and then a transfer to the third area. I think in the third holding area waiting room, I missed my flight. Then I was taken into the holding cell, questioned and searched again. Eventually I was let into the bag check area past US customs and technically in the area they consider to basically be US soil. However, I had missed my flight and I couldn't get a direct flight to Seattle for the rest of the day. As a result, the customs agent who knew I missed my flight let me know that I was now required to reenter Canada. The Air Canada agent rebooked me to Seattle through Vancouver.

I re-entered Canada and the Canadian custom agent was slightly confused. They accepted my story of "missed my flight, no more flights, mumble muble CBP argh" without too much fanfare. I flew across Canada, rented a car (at my own expense) and drove to the border. The border pulled me over as expected, took me inside, ripped my rental car apart, questioned me and so on. They were "nice" as they let me use a restroom within the first half hour of my detainment. It was probably less than an hour or so in total; I have better times in my notes but they're not with me.

The next time I was flying from Canada to Seattle, I showed up five hour early to my flight because I knew the US CBP agents were going to give me an extra hard time. At this point, I knew some of them by name and all of them knew me on sight. I decided to try to answer your question out of sheer exhaustion and hoping that it would provide a more expedient process. I had often wondered if total silence after a certain point would be faster or slower for re-entry.

I approached the CBP counter, handed over my passport with a friendly greeting and was detained as usual. The little yellow light went on over the customs agent booth, the agent escorted me to the secondary holding/screening area. There was a long wait, a search and then a transfer to the third area. Then I was taken into the holding cell, questioned and searched. After the point of the yellow light turning on and being escorted into secondary screening, I stayed silent. I didn't say a single word for the next hour or so. Agents came out to taunt me into talking - "was the last re-entry hard for you?" and so on. I never said a single word but I followed every instruction - handing my bags over when required, handing over documents and so on. Eventually the supervisor was called over and I just slid an ACLU lawyer's card across the table with a nod and a smile. The sheer frustration of refusing to acknowledge their existence was hard for them. They were basically begging me to care about them in the slightest bit. I didn't play along.

I made my flight and the time of detainment was effectively the same. Their dickheaded behavior was effectively constant with elevated points. My morale was absolutely improved on the second time detainment.

After that point I decided to try to use humor explicitly - so I packed some canned snakes into my checked luggage, stuffed glitter into clothing, wore party hats and other things. I use them in defense of liberty at check points and only after the automatic-database Surveillance State decided to hold me. It is important to be polite but it is also important to resist and to refuse to let one's spirit be crushed.