Originally Posted by
Andy1369
Hopefully that doesn't happen to the majority of people travelling internationally. How long does it normally take to clear customs these days?
The above link is a satire - it isn't a real "news" site.
FWIW, I cleared US Immigrations and Customs at ORD earlier this week. Took under a minute once at the immigration booth and was welcomed back by a nice CBP officer. CBP officer didn't even ask any questions.
For US Customs, I just proceeded through the Customs Hall and handed my arrival form to the CBP officer collecting them. 10 seconds.
Visitors to the US under the Visa Waiver Program must give their index finger prints and photograph at the Immigration Booth. Lots of booths open for US Citizens and Visitors alike. Process was very efficient at ORD earlier this week.
How quick one clears really depends if there are any queues, any wait to collect checked luggage, and if one gets sent to secondary US Customs. Thankfully I've avoided secondary US Customs in recent years.
I should note ORD T5 (international arrival) is one of the better US Customs & Immigration facilities here in the states.
On the other side of the pond, I cleared Immigration in Spain last week (Spain is part of the open-border Schengen travel zone). About a 5 minute queue for the visitors booth (non EU citizens). Agent swipes passport and stamps it (under 1 minute for immigration). Customs was almost non-existent, I just walked through the green "nothing to declare" lane.
OT:
No exit immigration check leaving Spain as I flew onward to Heathrow with IB and kept in-transit. Ironically, the BA flight that left to LHR prior to us departed out of the M5 section of BCN which is beyond outbound immigration control.
Not sure why, but a couple UK bound flights left M5 where pax must go through exit passport control to reach that area of the airport. Many other UK flights left out of M4 and other sections with no outbound immigration control.
The only proof I have of leaving Spain (the Schengen free-travel zone) is my arrival stamp at ORD. I usually end up going through exit control routing via AMS or MAD, but I'm not concerned about it as I've skipped exit control in the past leaving Schengen-EU with other routings.