Multiple Passengers Skipped Customs on US-Bound International Flight | Hacker News Reader

Multiple Passengers Skipped Customs on US-Bound International Flight

thestreet.com

31 pointsperihelions55 comments

Reminds me of that time that I was visiting new york for the first time in my life.

I was alone, I took only hand luggage and I was walking through either JFK or Newark- I went through passport control and was walking for what felt like 30 minutes, when I realised that an exit was very visible and there was a cab waiting; the only barrier was one of those clip/pull barriers that they use to segment queues.

I asked a nearby cleaner if it was OK to exit because I didn't “feel” like I had exited the transit zone yet. The cleaner was appalled that I would even dare to ask and indicated that I needed to continue on the path designated.

The thing about barriers of that type is that they're always sort of optional in the UK, its usually a recommendation (albeit a strong one).

I continued as planned and came to customs and baggage claim.

I reflected on the fact it would have been astonishingly easy to just leave.

Another time I was in LAX and Air Force 1 was there at the same time, I was not allowed to hand in my drop luggage to the baggage handlers and instead had to take all of my goods (including a pocket knife and several containers much larger than 100ml) onto my flight- which went through security with no issues.

The US is very confusing to me when it comes to airline safety measures- despite europe following their lead I feel like europe is much more consistent with the level of enforcement.

The "airline safety measures" of which you speak are all largely pointless security theatre.

AND they’re massively expensive to maintain as well!

Just like everything else in the US such as healthcare

> “This is a reminder that you have to be cleared by immigration when entering the US. You did unfortunately not clear immigration upon arrival into New York JFK last night.

The way they worded this is particularly crappy. They implicitly place the blame on the travelers when it was the airline that screwed up here.

Doubt it is the airline. Not entirely sure how JFK is configured but usually you have gates that are domestic or international, so they were probably assigned a domestic gate by the airport.

Alternatively some airports have gates which are domestic and international and have staff opening different doors which go to different passageways depending on where the flight has came from.

I assume it could be a series of errors in which both airport and airline/pilots are to blame.

One of the most maddening parts of travel SNAFUs is how they use this blame-shifting to avoid responsibility. I've encountered this numerous times flying in/out of JFK/LGA/EWR where they'll just blame each other endlessly and/or the weather without there being any truth to it. Insert Spiderman-pointing-meme here.

Every international gate can be a domestic gate in the US -- you just exit into the terminal via the same door you would board the plane from. It is pretty common to deplane a domestic flight at an international-capable gate at JFK and basically every other large airport in the US.

the US law also blames the passenger. I have heard horror stories of CPB officiers forgetting to clear one passport in a family.

The headline is worded pretty terribly as well. Customs controls the flow of goods, immigration controls the flow of people. Skipping customs is hardly a big deal, there’s nothing you can do to fix it at least. Entering a country without being processed by immigration is more likely to cause problems for the passengers. Though probably not in the US, there seems to be little control on outgoing passengers there.

One of those passengers posted:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Flights/comments/12cjf5q/i_flew_nor...

"Just got another email from Norse and they are now offering a free flight and Uber reimbursement if you return to jfk"

Had this happen once as well in another country. We landed further away from the airport and had to get into a bus. Bus dropped us off at the domestic flights terminal instead of the international one. People who traveled with carry-on only just got out. The rest of us stayed confused at the baggage claim until staff noticed the mix-up.

Its just not a true arrival in the US if you don't get to experience being tired, hungry, poor, teaming unwashed masses yearning to breathe free.

Why are they blaming the airline for this? Where passengers end up is dictates by which gate they disembark at (international/before Customs or domestic), and that's assigned by the airport, in this case JFK.

Edit: Reddit speculation is that they were correctly assigned to an international-capable gate, but somebody -- presumably an airline agent -- opened the wrong set of doors which routed passengers into the domestic side of JFK T7.

its possible that the airline agents forgot to set up the gate properly or left a door open, that allowed the passemgers to simply walk out.

the same could be said of the airport crews, but i suspect the burden of this falls on the airline, not airport staff

A good thing surely, it should happen more often.

> "It is in your own interest that you are processed by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of the US Government."

I can't imagine what upside the airline is thinking of here, certainly not for the passengers themselves.

You joke, of course, but if any of those passengers weren't US citizens, they've ended up in the US without a passport stamp and will look like illegal immigrants at later immigration checks.

Yeah, these kind of mistakes can make sure you're never able to reenter USA again. And the US embassy / border agents won't care one bit about who messed up - there's no complaint or due process there, you're just cattle.

The US doesnt have an immigration check at exit.

Apparently they use passenger manifests to match things up, and the airline will ask for proof you’re in the US legally if you’re from a country without a visa waiver.

But if you've ever been an immigrant to the US, you realize the I-94 system isnt always accurate, even if you were admitted by USCBP.

You can look up your own I-94 record online and if there is an error (say you're on an H1-B and an entry record is missing) it’s in your best interest to get it fixed or else your file will be flagged and you may have issues entering the US in the future.

I vaguely recall some Reddit post where someone received a 10 year ban from the US because there was no record of their departure, even though they stayed only 5 days. Basically their ESTA was rejected so they made a visa appointment and got the issue corrected.

> The US doesnt have an immigration check at exit.

This is hard to believe, is it only when you're flying from rich countries?

Also - good luck getting in the US again

We went through immigration four weeks ago and didn't get a stamp in the passport either.

There's probably an electronic (I94) record.

> JFK airport officials and U.S. Customs and Border Protection are reportedly investigating the Norse Atlantic snafu. If the airline is found to be at fault for the immigration check-in incident, it could face robust, per-passenger fines.

Also, a timely Wordle reveal for April 9.

It is in the best interest of the passengers (at least the international ones) to go back to the airport and get the immigration done. It will only cause trouble at the time of future departures/arrivals, and cause issue in visa extensions, etc.

what's weird is that when I requested my I-94 record from the CBP, it contained mistakes that didn't have matching entries and exits. It's really not as clean as you would expect from a paranoid country.

One of the big problems with the US is that unlike any other country they don't have exit procedures, there's nowhere you go and get your passport stamped, if the airline or the immigration officials screw up you have no proof you have left, and no way to know that they've screwed up ..... there are tons of stories of people who have visited the US a second time and been detained by INS ... the whole thing is some monkey-arsed setup

That's because all of the political capital is focused on keeping people out

Actually I think it's because they don't want to spend the money to create sanitised international departure spaces.

It's a mistake that means that one can't transit through the US without passing through US immigration (which typically takes hours). Hong Kong which I pass through a lot is more like a train station, you can get off of one plane and onto another in an hour or two, just have to pass through a bag check. This means that non-US people choose to fly through other countries, on other countrys' airlines just because the US is an impassible bloc for many

Can you still exit to Mexico via unattended turnstile?

That means the US wouldn't always have a record of the exit date.

When I visited the US I was surprised that there's no passport control on departure. Like, at all. I even thought we somehow went wrong way when we got to the gates after TSA, but nope. We asked an employee and were told that that's the way it is in the US. UK is also like that.

At least in the UK, it’s for two reasons:

1. Many older terminal buildings were designed without any space for exit controls. By the time they realized they would need exit controls (relatively recently) they realized they could just slurp the data from the airlines’ systems instead.

2. Immigration is chronically understaffed. The government would need to double the number of employees, which is never going to happen.

But how does it work when one isn't allowed to leave the country for whatever reason?

I don't know I've always used an airplane, so this is out of my hands, it's all between the airline and CBP.

If you enter the US by recreational boat (say the Great Lakes from Canada) there are actually locations with phones you can pick up and it connects you to USCBP who will screen you for admission.

Not sure why they dont just tell passengers to do it over the phone.

Because brown people don't come in on boats from Canada probably

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/family-from-gujarat-d...

Family of 4 from Gujarat drowns while illegally crossing river to reach U.S.

I imagine this is a problem when you're trying to leave the country to go back home, and they're asking you why you're not showing up as having entered the country...

US does not check your passport when you’re leaving the country

It does check the passport information provided by your airline, which is how they inject if you’ve overstayed.

If that process gets screwed then you can be in a world of hurt next time you visit.

Can you still leave by land to Mexico without any trace?

There is a classmate of my daughter (UK) whose family went to vacation in California. On a whim they decided to visit Mexico, but had left their passports at their San Diego hotel. They were allowed into Mexico without a passport and had an, ahem, interesting re-entry to the US. I’m surprised they were actually allowed back after several hours.

Nothing stopping you that's for sure.

Q: Will there be KGB in communism?

A: As you know, under communism, the state will be abolished, together with its means of suppression. People will know how to arrest themselves.

I was like "What? How did that happen? Oh, it's Paris."

Last time I flew through Paris, customs was asleep at the wheel. They cursorily checked, but did not stamp, my passport, causing problems for me in Helsinki. The Helsinki customs agent detained me -- right outside one of those beat-the-crap-out-of-you interrogation rooms -- while checking back with Paris to make sure I was actually cleared to enter the EU. Had I not had an hours-long layover, I might've missed my flight (on to Osaka).

What do you mean "it's Paris", the mishaps happened in JFK, not CDG.

Yes - the Schengen area is supposed to be one common immigration (for the purposes of short-term visits at least) area, but to say that there were differences in the approaches to the integrity of checks at the different national entry points would be putting it mildly.

Of course - if a border officer makes a mistake at one, such as in your case, it is naturally your fault for not ensuring that the correct procedure was followed.

> right outside one of those beat-the-crap-out-of-you interrogation rooms

The what now? It sounds like you have an intense imagination. Or watched too many movies.

They still stamp at European borders? I thought everything would be e-gate by now.

Yes - the Electronic Entry/Exit system is planned to come online towards the end of the year, just as it has for the last couple of years.

This is why we see the big queues at the channel tunnel borders post Brexit. British Citizens are entiled to a maximum of 90/180 days in the EU, similar to those from the US and other places. This is checked (should be) by an officer flipping through an entire (10 year) passport to find stamps from the Schengen area, and calculate the total number of days and dates to this limit before deciding on granting entry. There is no I94 equivalent that I know of.

It's weird to me that EU does not have a centralized database. I think there is for passport biometrics, but strange not for travel...I guess it could be "hybrid" problem: some travel predates the database. But for most immigration requirements, seems it could be achieved.

EES _is_ going to be that centralized database.

Cool! I look forward to it. BTW - is fuet super tasty?

edit: I checked^0 and it says it will be operational by end of May 2023. Do you know if this is still right? on track?

^0: https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/schengen-borders-...

Even with E gates there’s then a manual stamp afterwards - at least last time I used an E gate

I have an exit stamp in my passport from two days ago when I left Schengen and returned to the USA.

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