Originally Posted by
chollie
It's because of the way some US airports are configured.
You clear immigration, go through the baggage claim area, clear customs, re-check baggage, if any. Then you have to go through the sterile area either to leave the airport entirely or to catch a connecting flight.
The baggage claim (and re-check when connecting) area is unsterile and with good reason. I do not disagree with that idea at all. This is also not something you have to deal with in aforementioned AMS: once you're in baggage claim, you're not going to see the sterile area again without going through the land-side part of the airport and starting the entire process from scratch. At this point you're essentially outside.
Are there really airports in the US where, to
exit the airport, you have to go from plane to sterile to non-sterile (baggage) to sterile and once again to non-sterile (exit)? That may well be one of the more retarded things I've heard recently. Who came up with that idea? Is there a list so I can continue to avoid them (which, so far I appear to have done unknowingly)?
Originally Posted by
SATTSO
So there is more than just the "only"? If customs decides to search your bag, and you refuse, what happens?
You may enter (as is your right as a citizen of your country), your bag may not. You may however have brought on probable cause for the customs folk to search your person for illegal substances, hidden inside one's body. I'm not sure what would happen if you tried to refuse that.