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Why are United States immigration procedures so cumbersome?


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We were recently on the Q.V. South America adventure. On the way back the ship called into Fort Lauderdale for a one day stop. At immigration there were massive delays with very few staff processing passengers.By the time we had cleared immigration it was 1.30pm. Everyone had to be back on board by 5.30pm. A complete waste of a day! In complete contrast, British border force embarked in the Azores and processed passengers on the sea days prior to reaching Southampton. On arrival disembarkation was seamless. If we can do it why can’t the Americans?

 

 

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We were recently on the Q.V. South America adventure. On the way back the ship called into Fort Lauderdale for a one day stop. At immigration there were massive delays with very few staff processing passengers.By the time we had cleared immigration it was 1.30pm. Everyone had to be back on board by 5.30pm. A complete waste of a day! In complete contrast, British border force embarked in the Azores and processed passengers on the sea days prior to reaching Southampton. On arrival disembarkation was seamless. If we can do it why can’t the Americans?

 

 

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Because US Customs & Boarder Protection seems to like to make their border checks as slow and tedious as possible- they seldom have enough staff: perhaps to make Americans feel more 'secure'? Its a pain - even with an 'Esta' and on a returning visit during the 2 years validity period it is no quicker than a the first time you use it. Some airports (San Francisco for sure) now have a speedier (?) line called 'Returning ESTAs' but try and find it!!! Newark is not too bad - BUT try to avoid New York JFK where possible - they seem to be super slow.

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Nothing has changed there for many years. Fort Lauderdale immigration authority has a reputation for being pathetically (some say deliberately) slow, especially for cruise ships which are not registered in the USA. Without a doubt, countless thousands of potential day trips have been ruined by their ponderous inefficiency They have long since ran out of excuses and therefore Port Lauderdale is a port to avoid if at all possible.

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I think it depends where and the number of agents assigned to that location. The land border locations with Canada can vary significantly (fast or slow) depending on time of day or load.

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In the past, far too often, I've had less than welcoming (British understatement) first impressions of the United States from immigration officials, and have told family and friends to expect the worst when they travel to the USA...

 

Recently however, in airports both in New York (JFK) and last month in Los Angeles, I have witnessed excellent and professional immigration officials; efficient, polite, quick and yet surprisingly, warm and welcoming.

 

I have totally revised my opinion.

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Nothing has changed there for many years. Fort Lauderdale immigration authority has a reputation for being pathetically (some say deliberately) slow, especially for cruise ships which are not registered in the USA. Without a doubt, countless thousands of potential day trips have been ruined by their ponderous inefficiency They have long since ran out of excuses and therefore Port Lauderdale is a port to avoid if at all possible.

 

Are there any ocean cruise ships registered in the U.S.? I don’t mind the security checks and delays, I allow enough time so I don’t need to rush to catch a flight. I also try to be kind to the TSA folks as they have terrible jobs and are only paid a minimum wage.

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Nothing has changed there for many years. Fort Lauderdale immigration authority has a reputation for being pathetically (some say deliberately) slow, especially for cruise ships which are not registered in the USA. Without a doubt, countless thousands of potential day trips have been ruined by their ponderous inefficiency They have long since ran out of excuses and therefore Port Lauderdale is a port to avoid if at all possible.

I have to agree here. As a US citizen I have been held up for an hour or more several times. Once for 4.5 hours to clear the ship. But then, I am on Viking Sun at the moment and Singapore made us clear customs fully, thumbs on the scanner, etc. EVERY time we left the ship and especially when we returned to the ship..... Very delaying. Have never seen repeated full checks just to go back to the ship. Who knows how this stuff gets dreamed up by bureaucrats?:cool:

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Tit for tat....some years ago, friends of ours were on a South America cruise which sailed into Rio. There were TV News helicopters buzzing around and they only found out later why that was. The U.S. had imposed new rules on Brazilian visitors - photos and finger prints. The Brazilians had just decided to impose the same on U.S. visitors only, much to the disgust of the those passengers. Our Canadian friends were slightly embarrassed that they were enjoying this a bit too much.

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If you're a US citizen disembarking at Fort Lauderdale/Port Everglades, the good news is that if you have a Global Entry card there is now a Good Entry queue at all Port Everglades teminals. If you have a free CBP-approved app called Mobile Passport on your smartphone you can use the Global Entry queue as well. We got off a HAL cruise at the beginning of March. I had the app on my phone and there was literally no one in the short line ahead of us. We skipped past about (guessing) 150 people in the normal line.

 

The bad news we ended up spending all of the time we saved there waiting for the rental car shuttle, but at least that was outside and it was a nice day.

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As a US citizen, this is something that I am not happy with or proud of. We have experienced excessive delays at the Cunard Brooklyn terminal due to a lack of staff and inoperative computers. Re-entries at many US airports can be humiliating. My M.O. is to be as cooperative and humble as possible recognizing that the individual customs and immigration officials have too much independent power. And still weird things have happened. We've traveled the world and had some odd encounters from time-to-time in other countries, but nothing as unpleasant and wacky as when we re-enter the US. Sadly I am not optimistic about improvements. IMHO the US is becoming a country that is not very welcoming to visitors.

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It seems to depend on the port. We've done Immigration on the ship at Bar Harbor on HAL cruises and it's been very smooth. Smaller ships, fewer passengers, but I think one time we had only 2 agents and it still went quickly.

 

Arrival at FLL last month (HAL) was terrible because they had too few agents (lots of ships on a Sunday). It got so backed up that they had to stop disembarkation to allow the queue to get shorter. And when they did resume, the wait from the end of the queue was about an hour. It isn't entirely the fault of Immigration. The port staff were a mess, closing off and re-routing queues, forcing everyone into the main queue and not letting people use the mobile app. At one point, they closed the path for wheelchair assistance, leaving passengers and their HAL helpers waiting to find out what to do. It was only when someone pointed out that forcing the wheelchair passengers into the main queue would tie up chairs and staff for a long time that she reluctantly re-opened the wheelchair queue.

 

On our TAs last summer, eastbound we had UK Customs/Immigration officers on board and inspection was done over a few days. Smooth and easy. Westbound, we had to do Customs/Immigration shoreside. Way back in the days of QE2, I recall there being inspectors on in both directions, making the process easy.

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Has been like this for at least 40 years. They pay peanuts and they get monkeys, but never enough of them. They think that entering the USA is such a privilege that you should accept being treated like herds of sheep, being grunted at (happened personally to me), treated with disdain and grateful for finally being allowed to pass into the country.

 

It's like that because no US citizens who might change things are affected by it. I think that post-Brexit, the UK should make the point by having a special slow immigration lane for US citizens. Only joking. I think.

 

Stuart

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[quote name=Wiltonian;55700016

I think that post-Brexit' date=' the UK should make the point by having a special slow immigration lane for US citizens. Only joking. I think.

 

Stuart[/quote]

 

And we could be in a slow lane to go ashore in Europe after Brexit!

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...

On our TAs last summer, eastbound we had UK Customs/Immigration officers on board and inspection was done over a few days. Smooth and easy. Westbound, we had to do Customs/Immigration shoreside. Way back in the days of QE2, I recall there being inspectors on in both directions, making the process easy.

 

There was never a U.S immigration officer on any of the w/b crossings I made on the QE2. On our earlier crossings the inspection was done in a lounge aboard the ship after it docked in N.Y. I don't recall when the procedure was changed to on-shore inspections.

 

 

Several years ago I asked the purser on the QM2 why the U.S. border service wouldn't put an officer on board the westbound crossings to offer the convenience the UK does. He said that even though Cunard would pay the costs, the U.S. government said absolutely not.

 

After a bad experience decades ago I have always dreaded the experience in New York. We found it surprisingly efficient in 2016. That may have been because we disembarked fairly early as we had a Cunard transfer. Last year we were en route from Québec to Southampton and were told by Cunard to disembark in New York only when called as we were "in transit" and not wanting to go ashore. We did so about 10:30 and were concerned at seeing hundreds of people queued. But we were directed to one of two desks that seemed to be dealing only with in transit passengers without luggage so we got through quickly.

 

In Vancouver there is an airport-type pre-clearance for passengers going on the Alaska and Hawaii cruises. If there are two or three ships at the pier this can be a long process, but for passengers who arrive early it is tolerable.

Edited by david,Mississauga
Grammer correction.
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I think part of the problem is the U.S. is so big and so much of our tourism is internal, that seamless immigration for non-US citizens is unimportant to most citizens here. In fact, large parts of the U.S. are suspicious on non-Americans already so there's little incentive for many in Congress to allocate more money to immigration. The increases in the Homeland Security department have mostly been allocated to keeping people out.

 

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I was also a disembarking guest from the Queen Victoria on March 9.....but a US citizen. We left the ship with other Americans on our deck, as scheduled at 8:50 AM. The lines in the terminal, after claiming our bags, were horrendous; but well organized by Cunard's ground operator. Fortunately, we were ushered into a short line to US Border Patrol for US and Canadian Citizens and were through the formalities in no more than 10 minutes.

 

I am, by no means, defending US formalities, but offer a few comments:-

- travel, since 9/11, has changed dramatically and, if there was any fun in travel, not any more. Nowhere in the world and in some countries worse than others.

- can you imagine trying to staff US Border Patrol officers at the South Florida Cruise Ports (Ft. Lauderdale and Miami), when -

- all cruise ships arrive within a window of a couple or three hours.

- most cruise ships arrive either Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday; for example - (according to Cruise Ship and Port Schedules), the number of passenger arrivals at FLL were:- Mar 9, 5781; Mar 10, 12,367; Sep 11, 24258: Sep 12, 3823: Sep 13 and 14, nil.

- at FLL there are nine SEPARATE terminals, clearing passengers in each..

- IMO, most arrivals are US Citizens: certainly not the case off the Queen Victoria on Mar 9.

- What do you do with these officers the rest of the year if you attempted to staff according to the winter work- load months?

- mention was made of boarding officials at previous ports, to clear passengers on-board before before arrival at the next port. Good customer relations, but very poor cost effectiveness.

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- mention was made of boarding officials at previous ports, to clear passengers on-board before before arrival at the next port. Good customer relations, but very poor cost effectiveness.

 

It is very cost effective for the immigration authorities as the cruise ships have to pay a fee for this service which is well in excess of the staff cost.

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It is very cost effective for the immigration authorities as the cruise ships have to pay a fee for this service which is well in excess of the staff cost.
And it only needs one immigration officer to clear the whole ship as it's done over a much longer period.

It certainly works well in the Eastbound direction or when returning to Southampton after the Summer fly cruise season.

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Immigration process for people in wheelchairs is annoying. Everyone has to get off unless in the sick bay or confined to cabin. If you don't wont to visit New York you still have to get off. We had to wait right up until leaving the ship with last passengers. If we left before we would have to sit for hours waiting to return to the ship. We were told it's better and more comfortable to sit on the ship Right up until the last minute. There must be a better way. We will have to do this process twice at Christmas.

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Immigration process for people in wheelchairs is annoying. Everyone has to get off unless in the sick bay or confined to cabin. If you don't want to visit New York you still have to get off. We had to wait right up until leaving the ship with last passengers. If we left before we would have to sit for hours waiting to return to the ship. We were told it's better and more comfortable to sit on the ship Right up until the last minute. There must be a better way. We will have to do this process twice at Christmas.

 

Is this annoying procedure exclusive to the USA or does it happen at other ports where handicapped passengers do not wish to disembark ?

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