Originally Posted by
Toula
There is a significant difference between getting thru the US citizens queue vs the rest of the world even if they are the same length. Reason being is it takes a lot longer to process the visitors queue per person than it does the US citizens
Agreed, but in my experience they seem to have about two to three times the number of DHS
agents (as opposed to # of queues) working the foreign queue than the US queue. Also the agent working the Crew queue processes visitors when their line empties.
There is additional time for fingerprinting & photos but in about the last 5 times MrsZarf (Oz passport) and I've (US passport) arrived she's beaten me to baggage claim almost half the time.
One of the stumbling blocks to emptying the US queue faster is that there are ALWAYS visitors who line up in the residents queue. When they reach the agent it's 50/50 if the agent wastes 30 sec trying to explain that they have to re-queue or if they just spend the extra few minutes admitting the pax.