elizadoo

Is there anyone who can advise? We are stuck in Miami overnight because U.S. Immigration detained my daughter, a valid US citizen with passport, when she disembarked her LIS-MIA flight this afternoon. She was held in a separate room for 2 hours while the Immigration officials searched for her checked baggage. Her checked bag was not on the TAP flight. She was released after 2 hours, but the Immigration official would not give her the claim check back. He told her she must return to the MIA airport tomorrow afternoon (>24 hours, so we now must pay to stay in a hotel for 2 nights as we live 5 hours from Miami) and go the TAP ticket counter to file a lost luggage claim.

Knowing we need to file a claim immediately, we went to the TAP counter to file a lost luggage claim (with no claim check). The TAP the counter was closed. We then checked TAP online and saw that a claim for missing luggage must be filed before leaving arrivals. We could not do so, obviously.

We then called TAP in Portugal (midnight there) and were told to get the claim check back from U.S. Immigration in order to file a lost luggage claim. Impossible, as nobody can go back inside Immigration.

Does anyone know what we should do next? Thank you.

jphripjah

Weird. Why did they detain her? Did they detain her in the jetway as she was exiting the plane?

Usually, baggage secondary inspection occurs after the passenger claims his or her luggage.

Loren Pechtel

Yeah, I would be more concerned about what's going on than about another night in the hotel.

squeakr

Whatever the situation with customs and immigration may be, the OP is asking about how to file a claim for lost luggage.


That said I'm a little confused by the Opie's question. Your daughter has to go back to the airport tomorrow anyway, I would speak with the T a P desk during daytime hours and see what they recommend. By any chance does she have the claim number from immigration?

Some outside the box suggestions �

Call your senator or representative and see if an eight in their office can cut through some of the red tape to get the ticket for you at least get some kind of access for you.

Buy a full fare refundableticket to somewhere to get you inside security, and once you get inside, see if there someone you can talk to at immigration.

I don't know if my MIA is a global entry airport, but if it is, you may be able to possibly talk with one of the global entry immigration agents and explain the situation.

I'm thinking if immigration told you to come back the next day, it's also possible your daughters bag may be there by tomorrow. So definitely check with the luggage desk and have them look through any of the luggage it's left there or that arrive there from other flights. Since you don't know where the luggage wound up, it's possible it's made a circuitous route back to Miami. This is not super related, but Lost bag of mine years ago wound up going through three airports none of which I had flown through before it finally arrived at my destination in Madrid. So ask the TAP staff to look through all the bags that have arrived there that haven't been claimed.

flyerCO

As long as it was checked in by TAP and not another airline they'll have the bag numbers in their system. You should have found out who handles TAP luggage. They're the one the you would file with. Just because the TAP service desk is closed doesn't mean anything when at an airport where the airline doesn't handle ground. Someone should have been able to point you to the ground handling agent for TAP. Unless it was late overnight they would be there for any other airlines they handle.

Since didn't fill out the paperwork the Customs agent was correct that you must return to the airport. Part of the paperwork is a customs declaration and release, allowing the airline to act as your agent in clearing customs for your bags.

cbn42

An airport employee may be able to arrange for you to meet an immigration agent. Find an information desk and ask.

GUWonder

For checked luggage on international trips covered by the relevant Montreal Convention, claims can be filed up to 7 days later without issue.

The airline can liaison with CBP when it comes to customs clearance of a passenger's checked luggage -- either to clear it with or without the passenger present. Either way, make the claim with/against the airline so they have the passenger contact. This is facilitated by getting the baggage claim number info, something that is often loaded into the PNR. Given PNRs go stale or are archived rather quickly after trip completion and the deadline for baggage irregularity claim filing, it's important to get this done sooner than later.

As a best practice, I photograph my baggage claim checks at the check-in counter and message the images so they are retained by someone else as well.

jphripjah

Why not call the CBP port director and ask for your claim check back?

elizadoo

Thank you all for the clear and precise info--we are heading back to the airport now as I type this.

Question:

Daughter was detained at Passport Control, pulled aside after being asked where her parents were (she is a petite 23 but looks about 14), what tour group she was with (she wasn't, she was traveling solo through Europe), how she could afford to travel (savings and graduation gifts), why was she gone for two months (huh?)....on and on. This was in a room with appx 7-8 "policemen". Her carryons were inspected thoroughly and she was then escorted to Baggage Claim in a separate area behind glass walls and instructed to locate her bag. It wasn't there. The Immigration officer took her baggage claim check and she was told to wait. After a few minutes he returned and told her the bag appeared to be lost in transit. He would not return her baggage claim check. She was then instructed to go to another area and continue the process. This next Immigration official with whom she dealt was more understanding and clearly confused by what had occured; he said he saw no reason why she had been detained. He told my daughter that she would need to return to the airport for the next TAP flight (>24 hours) because her checked bag might be on that flight. In the meantime, she should try to contact TAP via phone, etc.etc.

My daughter is a frequent traveler and has encountered similar problem whenever she travels.
She went to Istanbul 2 years ago as an exchange student with a student visa in her passport, the officials insisted she was Turkish and not American; she was held until her identity could be confirmed. Likewise, when she returns from Latin America (volunteer work) she is pulled aside and questioned, but nothing like yesterday's 2 hour episode.

Is there anything she can do in the future to alleviate this? She has already had her passport re-issued with a new photo in which she looks older than 12! Would Global Entry help? Or, perhaps no longer arriving in Miami?

GUWonder

If she qualifies for Global Entry, it may indeed help to apply -- whether or not she becomes a member, it would be an indicator of sorts.

Also, it may help to avoid MIA as the US port or entry.

jphripjah

Thanks for your follow up elizadoo.

It's common for CBP officers to question young female travelers about who they are traveling with and how they paid for their trip. Young women are sometimes duped into smuggling drugs by older men who offer them free trips and then hide drugs in their luggage or convince/intimidate them to carry back drugs. This is pretty much the plot of half the episodes of the TV show "Locked Up Abroad."

A CBP officer would think that most 23 year olds work, they don't travel to Istanbul, Latin America, and Europe for months juts living off savings and graduation gifts. I travel alone and I'm a frequent traveler and CBP officers often ask me "What do you do for a living?" When I say "lawyer" they promptly wave me through, because they conclude that lawyers have money and can travel the world without smuggling drugs. But if I were traveling back from Colombia and they asked what I do for a living and I said "Unemployed" or "I wash dishes at Applebee's" then they would probably detain me longer.

That said, I'm guessing that passengers lose claim checks all the time. If she has her boarding pass, or just regular ID, the airline should be able to determine that the bag is hers.

I guess this is a good lesson though to at least take a photo of your bag claim ticket in case you lose it or someone steals it.

I will add one final piece of info that others here have seen me write before. As a U.S. citizen, your daughter is not required to answer any questions from CBP officers about what she does in the U.S. or what she was doing outside the U.S. She is well within her rights to remain silent. If she's not smuggling contraband, CBP has no power over her other than the power to search her bags and person and let her go in a few hours.

Note: refusing to answer questions can cause them to very very aggressive and intimidating and I'm not necessarily recommending that a 23 year old woman do this unless she can handle the intimidation tactics. But it may give her comfort to know that despite their threats and asshat behavior, they can't lock her up for refusing to answer questions.

flyerCO

I would both apply for GE and change US port of entry. MIA is one of the airports I hear the worst stories about. I think it may have to do with the high number of Central/South America flights. These are know for being major drug/money laundering/prostitution/etc locations. Being a single young girl just fits a profile of those used in these situations. IAH/DFW are some of the best I find for South of the border returns. Basically just avoid MIA for the return and is likely to have a better time.

yandosan

I wrote an article on FT a couple years ago called "Miami Customs Freak Show"...about being threatened about 10 times with arrest for no apparent crime while innocently passing through Miami customs for a connecting flight...
They got someone to sign up for FT and pretend they saw me and that I was causing a big scene. Bottom Line, Florida, home of the Hanging Chads is
hopeless when it comes to accountability. Try to call a good lawyer and explain what happened to your daughter. Based on this article and the reviews on Skytraxx Miami airport is just as bad as ever.

jphripjah

Calling a lawyer isn't going to do any good. It's not worth hiring a lawyer to file a lawsuit for a few hundred or thousand dollars worth of lost luggage. Nor will they recover anything based on the daughter being detained for two hours for questioning at the border.

elizadoo

OP here: thanks, you all have been great.

#1: No more MIA entry! Lesson learned.

#2: Photo of luggage and baggage claim ticket is a must.

#3: Always use a credit card with baggage delay benefits when booking all travel expenses. The one time she didn't use the Chase Preferred and the one time she bought the low-end trip insurance was the one time that her baggage was delayed (and now, going on day four, appears lost).