After a delayed arrival into Washington Dulles Wednesday evening from Frankfurt, I just wanted to get through passport control and customs and out to the parking lot to meet my friends. It was after 2am Frankfurt time and despite a rather relaxing flight on United, I was in no mood to stand around in long immigration lines.
As I usually do at Dulles, I inched my way in front of everyone else during the long trek to the mobile lounge after deplaning then strategically positioned myself to be one of the first off when we reached the main immigration hall.
I was one of the first from my flight to arrive, but there was a small crowd still queuing from a previous arrival. I got in the U.S. citizens line and rather quickly made it toward the front. There were three lanes open and about five people waiting behind the yellow line at each station. I was directed to one of the lines and stood patiently as the DHS slowly processed the people in front of me.
Finally, I made it to the front of the line. Suddenly, a shrill voice on an intercom system blared, “All agents who have been on the clock since 1100: finish up and clock out now. All agents who have been on the clock since 1100: finish up and clock out now.” Ok…
The agent working my line and the one working the booth to my left looked at each other and flashed visible grins. They both finished up the passenger they were working on, logged out, and left their stations, even though a line of passengers were standing (and had been standing for quite sometime) outside their booths.
That left one agent on duty to contend with a United 777 full of American citizens. We were herded to a single line, now about 20 people deep, and told to wait patiently. Meanwhile, about 200 people were now behind us.
Three foreign lines were open, so after a few minutes one of the three agents transitioned from foreign passports to American citizens and legal residents. I darted over to the line, but there were still ten people in front of me.
Finally, I got up to the front only to have this agent walk away from his desk. Thankfully, this was just to confer with a supervisor and two minutes later he was back at his desk and motioned for me to come over.
I made a comment about being understaffed and the guy got very defensive, stating, “You people don’t want high taxes so you get this.” I suggested that the DHS re-allocate some of its TSA funding to CBP. The guy snapped back, “Those idiots can’t do what we do. We’re very highly trained. We go to an academy. We’re law enforcement.” Whatever.
After his sermon, he stamped me in (stamping me back into my own country still puzzles me) and I was on way…30 minutes later than I should have been.
Once again, I ask myself why haven’t I invested in Global Entry? I really have only myself to blame.
Reading this I kept thinking why did UPGRD not have Global Entry? I’s a basic UPGRD way to go. Also thinking you are confusing CBP and DHS – they are two totally different govt orgs essentially doing the same thing.
Global Entry is simply amazing. I’ve only used it once so far, but it very well may have been worth the $100 right there. I arrived ~3pm into Dulles and the immigration lines were the longest I’ve ever seen — easily an hour for US citizens.
From the time I stepped into the building untill the time I made it out was <4min.
Simply awesome.
Ugh, IAD.
Maybe they stamp US citizens on return to sell more passport pages.
Its become a trend for agents to stamp on return. Makes me glad that I’ve only done the border preclearance. The agents at these stations seem to work much better, and are friendlier
@LILI: Isn’t CBP a division of DHS?
@Marcus: The funny thing about that is the gov’t will add pages to your passport for free–it just takes a bit of time. I think the extra stamping is just a waste.
I get to do this all over again in a couple weeks and am not looking forward to immigration at IAD again…
Matthew, FYI: as of last summer it now costs $85 to add pages to a U.S. passport.
@crammer: Ugh, just checked and you are right. That is really bad.
Will check and see if it is still free at overseas embassies and consulates.
Now I will make it a point to tell the goons not to stamp my passport.
Global Entry is an excellent program. 1) Less questioning when you go on international MRs.. 2) Saves a lot of times, especially when you arrive during a heavy international arrivals bank. Think ORD when there are three UA 744, Air India, BA, AF, etc.. Got through in thirty seconds, compared to, at least, fifteen minutes for the US citizen line
I’ll add my voice to those asking why you don’t have Global Entry as I read the post.
As far as reallocating funding from TSA to CBP – that’s a reasonable request regardless of the relative training/qualification requirements of the 2 groups.
The US is one of the few countries that don’t stamp you on departure, and only half heartedly for US citizens on arrival. Australia scans all passports, coming and going. If we really want to know who is in our country, perhaps we’d consider some measures which would actually keep track!
@Matthew
Adding visa pages cost $85 anywhere now. Even if you do it in overseas embassies/consulates.
Global Entry is great.. if you’re a US Citizen.
Otherwise, it’s another hour of my life queueing at IAD (and if you’ve made the mistake of C Concourse transit, at peak it’s another hour to get through Nude-O-Scope Central). Even ORD is getting awful for CBP these days.
And people wonder why I’ll go through Canada to get to the USA….
@Howard: You are sadly correct.