FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Guam and US Immigration and Customs Questions
Old Jun 18, 2008, 11:36 pm
  #15  
HkCaGu
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: PMD
Programs: UA*G, NW, AA-G. WR-P, HH-G, IHG-S, ALL. TT-GE.
Posts: 2,897
Originally Posted by ESpen36
And from the Wikipedia article:


Seems like a heck of a lot of unnecessary complexity. So Guam is within U.S. territory for immigration purposes (aside from Asian tourists?), but not for customs purposes?

Why not just do the whole thing--passport control and customs--for every arriving traveler? Seems like a lot of hassle to try to determine citizenship and conduct immigration on just those people.

I'm still not clear on what exactly Guam's status is, and how it differs from Puerto Rico's.


The CIA World FactBook says the following about the two islands' dependency status:

Guam: organized, unincorporated territory of the US with policy relations between Guam and the US under the jurisdiction of the Office of Insular Affairs, US Department of the Interior

Puerto Rico: unincorporated, organized territory of the US with commonwealth status; policy relations between Puerto Rico and the US conducted under the jurisdiction of the Office of the President


So...is it the fact that Puerto Rico is a commonwealth that makes it subject to U.S. Customs?
Each territory is different, and depends on the "deals" each territory has made with the US government. PR and CNMI are both commonwealths but there are few similarities. All territories are outside US customs except PR. But PR and HI, despite within US customs, have agricultural checks. When you add geography to history, the whole thing becomes very complicated.

Simply said, CBP isn't always CBP in the territories. For Guam it's just border protection, not customs (which isn't federal). Try bringing $10k from Country X through GUM (one day layover) to HNL. Arriving on GUM (if you leave the airport, you must go through Guam customs) you report it. Flying GUM-HNL you report it again. (You entered two customs agencies' jurisdictions!) All Guam customs does is filling out a form to notify US customs. HNL customs fills out another form. When two forms arrive somewhere in US DHS, the two records will probably match to indicate you brought in $10k, not $20k. Sounds fun?

Want more? Just add TSA. CS used to operate HKG-SPN-GUM because US suspended transit (GUM)-without-visa in 2002/03, and SPN (part of CNMI, which is outside US immigration and more lax in visa waivers) wants the tourists who can't bother to transit GUM. Arriving HKG-SPN at 5 am (nobody wants to wake up), everybody gets off the plane because you're "unclean" (foreign security doesn't count!) and are entering US soil. You wait a few minutes and board the same plane and seat and endure the tons of announcements half awake during the 20-minute SPN-GUM.

CS terminated the stop after one year--having realized that 90% of the passengers are GUM-bound, not SPN-bound. The flight stopped at SPN because it's not US (for immigration), but you can't sleep all the way to GUM and have to get off and on the plane half awake because SPN is US (according to TSA)!
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