Hacker News Reader

Comment by dooglius | Hacker News Reader

I was under the impression that international flights connecting through the US put travellers in what is technically international territory, and doesn't involve any of the difficulty associated with entering the country. Is this no longer the case?

View on HN

Maybe? All I can say is that last couple of times I transited through LAX, I had to go all the way out through security and passport control - I could have walked out the front doors of the airport - and then all the way back through. It was the same flight number, and the same physical plane that I was getting back on!

I then decided that was too much of a pain, and flew through Dubai instead, which has a vastly superior transit experience!

> I then decided that was too much of a pain, and flew through Dubai instead, which has a vastly superior transit experience!

At least assuming you're not a member of a demographic for whom that's a potentially dangerous location.

What demographic is that? (I plan to visit Dubai next month.)

To name one, trans people. It's my understanding that prescription drugs are carefully controlled in Dubai, and HRT is not permitted, and carrying HRT through Dubai can get you arrested and thrown in jail.

It's not international territory in any way, it's US territory. International airports being ports of entry is a bit of a legal fiction, because it's not feasible to conduct immigration and customs inspection immediately when the airplane enters US airspace. That doesn't mean that it's not US territory in any way.

Aliens (with certain exceptions) need either a US visa or an ESTA to transit through the United States. Technically speaking, the Immigration and Nationality Act permits transiting through the United States without a visa if certain conditions are met, but in practice this is not allowed anymore.

Many airports have an international transit zone, which is inside the legislation of the country, but in a legal fiction travelers haven't immigrated, yet. The only one having to go through border check there are travelers connections to domestic flights (in EU inner-Schengen flights are domestic) or for leaving the airport.

U.S. airports generally don't do that. Even when transferring from a flight between Europe and South America they request you to go through immigration and customs.

No, that's the way most airports work, but not in the US. Even if you are just transferring, you can easily just walk straight out of the airport.

I recently did a transfer in the US, took me 2.5 hours to go through customs. I booked before the govt shutdown, so I hadn't anticipated the delay. Not fun.

Cbp (international arrivals) is not affected by the shutdown (even if they blamed it on that) 2.5 hours for US customs sounds about right sadly

CBP is definitely affected by the shutdown. It’s just that most of them are still required to work anyway, despite not currently being paid.

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2018/12/2...

They are, but that can only go on for so long. TSA employees aren't exactly highly paid, so they can probably only hold out for a little while before finding other work. I'm very interested to see what travel in/through US airports will look like in another week or month with this shutdown.

2.5 hours?

I was on holidays to the US 12 days ago. Clearing customs & immigration in Miami International took less than 15 minutes.

Immigration is - probably everywhere not only the US - a sort of lottery. Depending on your time of arrival (3 other flights coming in at the same time?), your passport (biometric? citizen?) and your travel class (first get's off first, and will either have their own lines or simply outrun you to immigration due to their headstart). And then there are also prioritized programs (global entry etc) you could sign up for prior.

Foreign biometric passport. Travelling on ESTA.

No Global Entry, Economy ticket, so getting off with the rest of the cattle.

But yes, I have never, ever in my life seen a immigration queue that long, and I’ve taken some 50-60 flights in my lifetime.

It can vary hugely with airport and time of day. I've had to wait over 3 hours once in Chicago to get through immigration.

Yes, the line for foreign passports was 2.5 hours at Washington Dulles. 2 CBP agents for a few hundred people.

Last time I was there, US passports lane was slow, foreign was very fast.

Not at all - when flying through Miami on a way to Bolivia in June last year, we had to get a full US visa (which caused us tons of problems due to company issuing them for wrong country, making them invalid).

Maybe it depends on airport design, but in Miami there is nothing stopping you from leaving the airport. In fact, we also experienced various issues with flights, and had to literally get out to check in area and chase airlines to take us (it is a long story, full of drama and missed flights due to external errors/issues).

US is special in this, now we heed the advice of many - don't travel through US in any way, potential troubles are not worth it.

That's never been the case. US airports do not have sterile international zones.

This is called "sterile transit", and as stated on that page the US doesn't do it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com