Pwrzecio

Hi all,

Would anyone have some experience regarding the immigration process at LAX during the stop for the flight AF076 CDG-LAX-PPT ?
Do you have to go through the immigration process during the stop-over ?

The reason why I am asking is that my wife has a problem with the immigration in US
She traveled towards the US ten years ago while her passport was expired.
(note in case ou are wondering: by car from Canada. We used to live in Canada). So she was denied at the US immigration.
Since then, although she does have ESTA, she is in the list of people that have been once 'deny entry'. Recently, this elected her for a second queue and second immigration check at the immigration border when we went to the US. Which took a lot of time.

So bottom line, we are very much afraid that if she goes to a second inspection / immigration check again during the stop-over at LAX, there is a lot of chance we miss the second leg LAX-PPT.

Thanks for sharing your experience and ideas.

stimpy

If she has been granted ESTA and it has not yet expired then that's the difficult part done. I would hope and expect that since the immigration officers are aware that she isn't actually entering the US, that she should be processed quickly. I think the main reason that the US forces transit passengers to go through immigration is to check to see if there are outstanding arrest warrants or anything like that.

However anything is possible.

KLouis

I think there is a more pragmatic reason: US airports (all of them) have no dedicated transit area. Essentially, all transit passengers are "free" to stay in the US if they wish. Immigration agents are therefore checking the "credentials" of all passengers and grant them real "entry" (limited permit of stay) into the USA, even if they're about to leave in an hour or so.

stimpy

Actually there is a transit area at LAX for this particular itinerary. While I haven't flown to PPT myself, I have arrived several times on the AF flight from CDG that connects to PPT and I've seen the room where they direct the PPT passengers to. It is well before the normal immigration area. So they cannot actually enter the US. Unless things have changed recently?

Goldorak

It's maybe not applicable to this case but the situation of clearing immigration at LAX TBIT has dramatically improved from total chaos to a breeze. I was there a few days ago and I cleared immigration in 5 min thanks to the automatic kiosks they have installed. There are a lot (I would say 20-30 for what I saw). And this despite several A380 flights arrived at the same time (EK, AF, BA).