Originally Posted by Gargoyle
What was that recent incident with someone connecting through the U.S., I think he was travelling from Canada to Europe. He'd purchased meds for his father, didn't have a valid prescription on him, and the U.S. detained him for a long time and confiscated the meds (which his father desperately needed); he was violating U.S. drug transport laws, but IIRC not violating laws of his departure or destination country.
I'm hoping someone here could recall more accurate details of the story and track down a link.
The point being, be aware if any U.S. laws could cause problems when transiting.
the above incident sounds suspiciously similar to the scene in The Terminal when Tom Hanks translates for the dude bringing pills through customs ("it is for goat")... of course, I suspect the above story really did happen; it just sounds similar to that part of the movie.
The difficulty for citizens of other countries "connecting" through ATL is that the E concourse at ATL is not a true "international terminal" at all; its really just another concourse in an airport where all concourses are interconnected. This is good for DL, but it makes it a lot harder for the govt to make certain that ppl who land there w/o permission to enter US soil actually take their connecting flights (thereby leaving US soil).