I’ve seen some bad immigration lines in the USA before, but never anything as horrific as what I saw at San Francisco International Airport last week.
It was Saturday afternoon and my wife, son, and I had landed at SFO at about 4:30 PM. As we stepped off the jet bridge and into the arrivals hall, I noticed a crowd in the distance. At first, I assumed it was just a gaggle of people walking toward the immigration facility.
But as I got closer, I saw that this was the line. And it was not moving…
Passengers were clearly agitated, with some on the phone trying to reschedule their connecting flights and others simply taking pictures.
Of course, ground staff were barking orders at them and being generally unhelpful.
As it turned out, this was the line for foreign visitors. The line for U.S. Citizens was much shorter (Global Entry kiosks were totally empty).
I asked, just curious, why the lines were so long. Were there unexpected personnel absences? Underfunding? Because I had never seen the lines that bad.
“This is the way it always is in the afternoon,” said one immigration agent.
Whatever your political persuasion, these are people coming to the United States to visit family or friends and spend money. We should be ashamed of the third-world immigration facilities we offer at leading international gateways. No one should have to wait several hours to get through an immigration line…
I know the United States is not alone in forcing arriving international guests to wait in long queues. I’ve been stuck in the United Kingdom, China and Australia before as well. But this is in my country and my state. I am so embarrassed.
You can check current waiting time for SFO immigration lines here. If you’re traveling through SFO, good luck…
It is such a shame the way we treat incoming travelers in this country. Ask a non-U.S. citizen, and they’ll all have horror stories at arrival facilities.
The term ‘third world’ is generally viewed as dated and inaccurate at best, offensive at worst.
The US doesn’t even have universal health care. Third world is fairly accurate, with bits of first world throughout I guess.
USA has become third world.
Get over yourself: nothing to be triggered about, cupcake.
Please complain abt the long wait lines to CBP @ https://t.co/AALLRCumbg
“third-world immigration facilities we offer at leading international gateways”
???
IS TBIT at LAX 3rd world? Is SFO intl terminal 3rd world? what are you talking about, those are two of the nicest international terminals in the world….
I said immigration facilities, not the overall terminals.
so because there is a line its 3rd world? the facilities themselves are a few years old…perhaps you should clarify DHS is understaffed…
Third world because it often takes ages to clear passport control in third world countries.
Absolute chaos at SFO right now. Flight after flight of passengers are disembarking, 100s at a time and there are only 5-6 counters open for visitors. Can’t believe it’s this inefficient for a first world country.
So who’s going to take steps in that direction ?
Public or Govt ?
These tourist /traveller bring increased spending power for the local economy / eco system.
Yeah that’s incredibly [redacted] insulting, have you been to “third world” immigration facilities? They’re not architectural marvels but they are very reasonable facilities with standard fingerprint scanning, passport screens, bag screens, etc. Just because a country is poor doesn’t mean they’re incompetent. You can point out the disasters of our government/society/whatever and should but you should know what you’re talking about. You know about our issues obviously but your comparisons are insulting.
Watch your language. Yes, I’ve been to 141 countries.
SFO International is one of nicest international terminals in the world? Have you actually been anywhere outside the US?
If American, probably not? 🙂
I’ve been to Bangkok, Sydney, Melbourne, San Francisco, LAX, Auckland, Wellington, London, Frankfurt, and probably a few more I’ve forgotten about. San Francisco is OK, but it’s definitely got nothing on Bangkok airport. It’s probably on par with Auckland and Sydney/Melbourne, but calling it one of the best in the world just shows you haven’t been anywhere either.
I’ve had a minimum 45 minute wait the last 3 times I’ve come into San Francisco airport. The last time I came in was about 3.5 hours.
I had 4 hour wait in sfo immigration line after 20 hr flight from Asia. Families with kids and elderly waiting for hours . Kids sleepy/cranky and tired of waiting. The system in SFO is the worst I have seen. 3 immigration officers for 3 flights landed at same time !!
@surfer – comprehension issues? inferiority complex?
LOL
Obviously, these people should just walk across the open border between Mexico and the US.
And, no added Immigration and Customs fees!
Holy non-sequitur Batman!
LOL.
Same experience this week… 3-4 international flights landed at the same time and only 3 customs officers to handle US passengers… took is 1.25 hours to clear customs…
Correction: passengers needing physical assistance had 3 customs officers dedicated to their que.
Then we pass multiple security stations configured to scan luggage for passengers leaving the airport, doing nothing, to be sent out of the terminal to go through security with local passengers entering the airport.. (I understand the need to re-screen, but it needs be handled better, especially since other resources are available).
My takeaway: If you must fly through SFO, ensure you have a minimum 3 hour layover.
I live in SF and I would rather spend the money solving the homeless crisis than making sure foreigners go through immigration a bit more quickly. I guess we don’t have the same priorities
You don’t see the link? Revenue from tourism can help address your primary concern. Solving the immigration issue helps the fiscal issue by encouraging $-spending tourists and visitors, which then helps the homeless issue by increasing the availability of $ to actually address the problem.
The airlines want profitable routes; if the US Customs Department is short handed they can’t possibly keep up with so many passengers arriving!
Solve homelessness? Not a priority of elected officials and NGOs.
The “Compassionate Industrial Complex” takes millions of dollars to create jobs and benefits and pensions to manage this mess.
They need homelessness, drug addictions, epidemics, to keep their wallets padded.
It’s never been about solving homelessness.
Tourism tax revenues just feed the pigs.
San Francisco is perhaps the NIMBY-est place on earth. They have no one to blame but their sanctimonious selves for their housing problem. How that is related to CBP staffing and procedures at SFO is not clear to me.
As a Canadian H1-b visa-holder, resident in the U.S. for 7 years, who travels internationally for work, welcome to my world! I go through immigration in several different countries every year and by far the most difficult and unpleasant one to do so is the one I live and pay tax in. Got an 80-minute layover in JFK coming up, should be an adrenaline-rush.
ATL and the Canadian ports of entry aren’t too bad. SFO, LAX, JFK, MIA… better bring a good book along.
First of all, if you travel at least once a year and have a credit card that offers Global Entry that is a no-brainer. As for the line, yes it is terrible BUT nothing different than what you see at Heathrow when 4 or 5 A380 land at the same time.
I waited 1 hour and 45 minutes to enter Portugal back in February. Longest passport control wait I a have ever been in.
If your embarrassed by this you might as well never travel. The world is getting bigger. Airlines are putting more flights at the same time than airports can handle. It is happening all over the world.
Not all foreign visitors can obtain global entry. The US line was short.
Sorry, I meant every US citizen that travels at least once a year and have credit card that pays for GE should get it.
Matthew’s point is about foreign visitors though isn’t it. I’m one – it makes any return trip to the US less likely.
My wife a Thai National came thru SfO immigration yesterday fir Doha on Qatar and was treated poorly, by an agent. She has. Green card an abided by all the rules. I would like to make a formal complaint, do you have a name for me to speak to. Thanks Capt. Davei Hachinsky Ups Airlines. davidhachinsky@yahoo.com or 772 321-9191
The last time I arrived at SFO, the wait was over 3 hours, for an interview lasting 30 seconds. It was Hell after an 11 hour flight.
It would be wonderful if they fixed it but we are not alone in having bad immigration experiences for non-citizen/residents. I have seen it just as bad at LHR and NRT (where they make you stand in it coming and going).
Wow, that’s ridiculous. Thank you for highlighting this issue. I think an acceptable immigration wait time is 15 minutes with 30 minutes being the limit. I lived in Singapore for 5 years and not once did I see a line longer than 10 minutes there… so it definitely can be done.
Waited 70 minutes at LHR because they only had 2 stations open for 200+ people. USA is not alone…
Glad UK changed its E-gate policy recently.
As I said in my article, the USA is certainly not alone.
The US Border Agency is likely stupidly underfunded and/ or lazy. I fly to the states from YYZ on a weekly basis and there are like 2 or 3 officers for an immigration queue that’s out the door.
Did you catch how many stations were unmanned at SFO?
That’s the thing. Most appeared staffed which I why I’m not certain this is a funding issue.
One time, I got out of an OZ flight from Seoul into JFK. We were in business class, so walked quickly to beat the rush off of the A380 and managed to get to the Non-US Citizen line with only 3 people in front of us. I was thrilled and texted our car service driver waiting that we should be through quickly. It took 45 minutes to process the 3 families in front of us because there was only 1 (!) desk manned and he was taking a really long time with each family. Once we got to the desk we were through quickly, but boy was I baffled at how long we had to wait being 4th in line!
Was there flights from certain countries?
Looked like Europeans to me.
Green card holders (permanent US resident s) used to be entitled to use the same line as citizens. Last time I came through SFO immigration I noticed that they now are being sent to the foreigners line adding to that congestion. What public policy purpose is being served by that? They are vetted to get their green card and again every 9 years when applying to renew
Maybe this is the wall being spoke of?
I live in Sao Paulo and whenever I go through immigration, the wait is consistently only 5-10 minutes for foreigners…max 20 minutes. The US immigration facilities need to be better staffed.
That is why GRU airport receives way less international flights at the same time than any international airport in the US. Many times landed at GRU and that was the only international flight arriving at the time so it makes going through immigration a breeze. As for getting your luggage at GRU….. that is a story for another post. What a disaster!!!!!
I never had issues with regular bags though sometimes they take a bit longer to come out. Though if you are travelling with a bag “fora do padrão”, it can be a mess at times. In general, Brazilian airports (GRU, CGH, SDU, GIG, SSA) tend to be much more efficient than American airports and even other Latin American airports. AEP, MVD, SCL, and BOG all can be quite inefficient at times. I think there is more immigration and security staff at Brazilian airports.
Did you look at the avg wait time for non US citizens? Going back to Apr 1, there’s only a handful of times where the avg wait time exceeded 60 mins. The post/photos is not representative of the typical situation.
I’m not talking about US citizens. I’m talking about foreign visitors.
I know. See my above post…I stated for “non US citizens”.
From 1/1/19 to 5/8/19, for non-US citizens in terminal G, the avg wait time was 31.01 mins and the avg max wait time was 79.87 mins.
The immigration line (and the courtesy of the staff) is for many their first impression of a country. If anyone had any pride in their country at all, and want to show it off in all its glory, it really starts at the immigration line folks.
My first impression of the USA was a 500-strong line with 3 counters open and a 3.5 hour wait. Agree – it is third world and it is shameful.
I arrive all the time in the afternoon and rarely see long lines for anyone. In fact sometimes I see more people waiting for GE than citizen lines. So I think this was an aberration.
In any case US citizens who travel internationally 1x a year or more have no excuse for not buying GE particularly when it is often reimbursed thru many crdit cards. Time is money. That is the lesson here not long lines.
Recently I flew DUB-ORD. While visiting Europe, I went out of my way to fly from DUB to the U.S. for Pre-Clearance. It took 60 minutes from the primary security, to secondary security screening to waiting in the US citizens line for the ICE/CBP counter. It was apparently busier as some airlines, like AA, started seasonal flights that very day. But it was worth getting the pain over with at the start and just walking off the plane at ORD to my connecting flight. I avoid arriving from overseas at JFK, PHL, ATL, MIA, SFO, ORD, SEA, EWR, and BOS. Total nightmares – and that was back 30 years ago already! The list is growing as the numbers of travelers increases yearly. Dulles airport is good as is CLT. A while back I flew into LAX weekday mid-morning and was pleasantly surprised at how quickly I got through ICE and out the door, 7 minutes or so. Timing of flight arrival is helpful in mitigating the wait.
Generally, how good/bad is the connection process at SFO when going Asia-SFO-EWR on United? Is a terminal change typically necessary? Is passport control for American citizens notably better or worse than, say, IAH or ORD?
Not bad at SFO, IME. All terminals connected.
Solutions:
1) Biometric e-gates for U.S. citizens, Canadians, and permanent residents (and low-risk foreigners) — this would allow CBP officers to devote more attention to everyone else. (No, Global Entry is not as good as an e-gate!).
2) End the silly practice of requiring passengers to endure both passport control *and* customs — in the European Union, “customs” is walking through a green or red door.
This is why I always go through Dublin to LAX . Clear immigration in Dublin. Land at terminal 2 just as if you landed from Chicago. Wonderful
Always travel Frankfurt to Dublin to LAX. Easy, no hassle and a private lounge in Dublin
Thanks for identifying this problem. SFO is my home airport and I have never seen lines as long as the one you photographed. I wonder what Summer travels will bring?
Coincidentally, I arrived at ORD terminal 5 last Saturday around the same time as you, and saw some long lines, but not nearly as long as what you show at SFO. Spouse and I both agreed that GE finally proved its value at ORD.
I go through immigration at Mumbai, India once a month and the wait is consistently 5 minutes or less. Thank God for Global Entry! I wouldn’t want to be a visitor to the US.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/u-s-customs-and-border-protection-san-francisco
It took me 2 hours and 50 minutes last Saturday to clear immigration at LAX. To be fair, I’ve lived here for 7 years and entered the country at least 30 times and it’s never been quite this bad. I hope it was a one time thing, but it’s concerning that the situation at SFO was similar.
Something I’ve never been able to wrap my head around: clearing immigration with ESTA is much simpler and involves some level of automation, but clearing immigration with a visa is much more complicated and there’s absolutely no automation available. Aren’t people with visas much more thoroughly vetted already (especially after entering the country dozens of times) than someone who filled out a form on the internet and who may have never been in the US before?
Is a human officer really necessary to ask me what university I’m attending (which they already know)? How is this something that can’t be automated?
Truly disgraceful. It’s a clear message that visitors are a very low priority, if not entirely unwelcome. US visitors to Australia have access to E Gates ( for those with a chip passport). The average wait would be less than 10 minutes ( unless there’s an IT meltdown as happened in Sudney last week). Unfortunately there is no reciprocity.
I love visiting the US , but the airports are pathetic. The experience does lessen the frequency of my visits.
I live in SF, and I’ve been through that same line many times before (as a US citizen). I’ve never seen the non-citizens’ line be that long. I think (and hope) that this is an anomaly.
I am stuck in immigration at SFO today (May 19) and the clock is running at 2 hours and 5 minutes since joining the queue. I am a UK citizen and have pre purchased my online ESTA visa waiver, which was approved. Upon arriving in the queue, I scanned my passport at one of the machines and thought hey brilliant, maybe the home of Silicon Valley has put those bright minds to good use… Alas no, a mysterious cross came out over my printed receipt. Sure, your country, your rules… But what was the point of the advance ESTA and the expensive fingerprint machine?? Nothing like a 2.5 hour queue to remember one’s first visit to California!!
Great post.
People say “Wall!” or “No Wall, immoral!” The truth of the matter is that immigration red tape is slow, be it at the airport or apply for visa or trying to immigrate. Slower than the post office.
You should just block comments on immigration related posts. It’s too depressing.
US and UK are pretty much in their own category when it comes to the immigration efficiency.
What I don’t understand is that often in the US there’s more staff guiding people to the queues than actually checking the passports. The latter isn’t exactly rocket science so if everyone was just checking passports, queues wouldn’t be needed. Even where the machines can be used, there’s still queue to have a final human to check the paper out. Must be some kind of union thing?
I like travelling to the US but actually getting there is the most annoying part.
The pictures shown are fairly similar to what we met coming off a BA747 from LHR in early April. We joined the back of the queue following passengers from the recently arrived Korean Air.
After about 10 minutes of waiting at the back a (helpful) SFO agent, like the one pictured, came down the line and invited those of us who had visited the US recently to enter the almost empty Automated Passport Control (APC) area.
We then had a short wait in line to see the immigration officer, collected our luggage and were in our rental car within 60 minutes of landing, which we thought was good going.
What appeared to me to be the problem was that the SFO agent did not appear to understand the eligibility rules for APC; instead of asking who had “recently visited the US” the correct question should have been “have you successfully completed the ESTA process?” I imagine that the vast majority of our fellow passengers from LHR would have met this criteria and the lines would have become more equitable.
We were lucky, a colleague who had travelled LHR-SFO several weeks before me had met the same scenario and was able to warn me what to expect. Unfortunately I imagine that, due to lack of understanding of rules by agents and visitors and a lack of clear signage in the area pictured, many hundreds of passengers are delayed unnecessarily at peak times.
I’m a US Permanent Resident with a British passport. The last two times I’ve flown in IAD immigration has been a breeze. Apparently Dulles is now using facial recognition technology. You don’t even need to use the automated kiosks anymore. Immigration has literally taken me 10 minutes.
Says a lot about how great this country is that foreigners are willing to wait this long to get in. In a way, this makes me proud! You don’t see a line of people at SOCIALIST Sweden or Norway…
Regarding the statement:
Whatever your political persuasion, these are people coming to the United States to visit family or friends and spend money.
Plenty of us are actually people who live and work in the US and pay State and Federal taxes (and this is very true at SFO). We’re not getting a remotely decent level of service for what is being paid in return when we re-enter the US via SFO.
It’s just as bad when we US citizens land in other countries.. It took 2.5 hours in Edinburgh,Scotland and we were 12th in line… the officers were very slow…It’s the same in Mexico… a ZOO!!!
Odd – as a non-US citizen I tend to get through customs and immigration in every country I’ve been to in but a few minutes.
Currently waiting in the immigration queue at SFO and found this post while wondering if this was normal… Landed 2hrs ago and we’re still waiting.
The worst bit of all: we’re just transiting through on the way to Canada! We don’t even want to enter the country!
I’d say this, avoid flying into international ports of entry like LAX, SFO, JFK, NEWARK, DULLES, MIAMI, and ATLANTA on weekends. Once I flew back from Milan, Italy on a Sunday afternoon to JFK Terminal 4 and I had the misfortune of having four to six other international flights coming in at the same time frame. The wait line for U.S. passport holders was 1 hour, so I can’t imagine how long the wait must have been for international travelers. But believe me there was much worst things that can happen to international travelers going through Customs than having to wait two to three hours.
Having US citizens line-up to get back into their own country is a disgrace. When I enter Australia on my Australian passport, the SmartGate system lets me straight in, no waiting. Oh… it also admits the citizens of a large number of other countries which issue biometric passports too, without making them line-up like peasants waiting at the well.
We arrived at SFO at 5.30 pm yesterday, and were directed to the auto-kiosks. After getting out receipt from the machine… we were then told to line-up, which took an hour! Nobody would or could tell me why we had to jump through the hoop of using the auto-kiosk first. There’s no reason why people with passports from “friendly” countries shouldn’t be able to use the auto-entry – after all, many of those places let US citizens use automated entry. Lining up for an hour to answer the same old inane questions from a bored and disinterested official is pointless, and frustrating to the point of tears. The room is also very hot, and the entire experience had me wondering if we were all going to be sprayed with water from fire-hoses to cool us down, given the general cattle-car vibe of the immigration hall.
We just returned from a trip to France. It took us 90 minutes to get through customs. When we finally got to the agent and handed him our US passports, he asked how long we were visiting. I said forever I hope.
Just as a comparison, when we go Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris we were through customs in 20 minutes. CDG has about 15 million more passengers per year than SFO.
So not just visitors having long waits.
My wife and I had to put up with a 2 1/2 wait in the on Monday the 6th on our way to Canada.
USA get your act together or use international transit lounges for those just passing thru, luckily we had planned a few days in SF.
the wait time for the same 14 months earlier was an hour 15.
Situation hasn’t improved a bit. We landed today and already have been waiting 1.5 hrs and barely reached near. Pregnant women, families with kids don’t even have a priority line or some place to rest. But the board still says “Welcome to the United States of America”
I have one trip every year to Europe and go back to SFO and always spend, at least, 90 min waiting in line alone with my two kids under 5 yo. I am not a visitor. I am a visa holder and I wait in line with non US citizen. Of course. No issue. Just I spend my money just like tourist and I pay taxes (more than citizen indeed, since now we, visa holders, don’t benefit from tax credit for kids as we used to do until 2018)… the main issue is not really the waiting time, it’s much more the conditions : very hot, no bathrooms, no attention to kids or old persons…
It was a lucky day. Today on feb 3 of 2020 we have queued 5h30. Insane. No other airport around the world keeps you in a queue for 6 hours!
5hr, 30min? Oh. My.