joejones

The French let the British do pre-clearance on the French side of the Channel Tunnel...

At FRA a few years ago, I encountered an entry queue for EU citizens that was longer than the entry queue for non-citizens. My Japanese wife waited for me for a while on the other side of immigration and then commented that "your passport sucks."

t325

And the other way around of course, too. It makes sense - let people trickle in as they arrive for their train, rather than have large groups going through immigration at once when the train arrives.

GUWonder

As I've mentioned in other threads on this very topic, the foreign countries won't be able to get this kind facility at existing US airports unless the desired U.S. airport owner/operator is willing to let it happen. Regardless of there being an apparent reciprocity of some sort in the PreClearance-facilitating bilateral agreements, which includes the publicly available bilateral agreements and the non-publicized agreements related to the same.

You do know that EU citizens can use the "All Passports" and "Non-EU/EEA" lines? In other words you could go through with your wife in the same line as she used that time.

Also, I've seen the non-citizen lines at FRA, ARN, HEL, OSL and many other Schengen or EU airports be very small (to nearly non-existent) and yet the processing was so slow that the huge EU line cleared up in advance of me as a US passport holder.

GUWonder

How the U.S. Government approached this:

http://www.fiercehomelandsecurity.co...rli/2015-06-04

FateSucks

Why Spain?


And really? This is an inconvenience on my part since that means I have to give up a few more hours of last minute shopping and dining just to come back home into the U.S.!

With few exceptions, other countries' airport security never make me take off my shoes and let me keep my light coat on and are much more polite than what I went through at my US origin airport leaving for a holiday.

FateSucks

Why Narita?

The terror alert is nowhere near as high compared to other countries!

Consider me not returning home through Narita!

This is all just paranoia.

GUWonder

Because Japan likes to do what the US wants and because it's a VWP country?

More so Asian feed from beyond Japan, and trying to get CBP PreClearance to handle more than just a quarter of US-bound passengers.

The current announcement is to expand it to cover over 1/3 of US-bound passengers. Some in the USG want to see it in play for not just 1/3 of all U.S.-bound passengers but want it for the vast majority of VWP users because VWP countries' passport users are also seen as rather high "security" risk for the U.S.

FateSucks

Even then, they are nowhere as dangerous compared to other countries with unstable or strong theocratic governments!

Japan makes two or three passport checks when boarding an international plane and even fingerprints foreigners arriving in its country since 2007!

GUWonder

Transit passengers are a concern, more so when it comes to NRT.

Which countries have theocratic governments? Iran won't be getting CBP PreClearance, and Iranian passport users can't travel to the US without a U.S. G pre-clearance in the form of getting a US visa or other US travel doc. Even if the prospective host government would want such a facility, good luck finding CBP employees wanting to live there without diplomatic (not consular-like) cover. And even then, expect CBP to cost more to staff outside of the U.S. than inside of the U.S.

Countries with unstable or theocratic (if/when different) governments have passports that are good for travel to the US only in conjunction with a US visa or other US travel doc -- a sort of U.S. pre-clearance. It's VWP countries' citizens which are the main ones -- after Canadians and US immigrants -- to travel to the U.S. without a pre-travel manual doc check by USG employees. This, as with ESTA, is, in some twisted way, narrowing the "security" gap between VWP countries' US-bound visitors and non-VWP countries' US-bound visitors.

cblaisd

Since there is an active thread on this in the Travel Safety/Security forum
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/check...-airports.html, let's move this to that forum and the mods there can merge if they wish.

cblaisd
Moderator, Travel News

PhotoJim

It can be but it needn't be. The Canadian/US agreement for preclearance facilities gives Canada the right to establish facilities in the US, although to date it has not taken advantage of this right. The UK/French reciprocal agreement with Eurostar works quite well, too, with the idea being that it's more efficient to deal with passengers as they arrive over a somewhat spread-out amount of time instead of dealing with them *en masse* when they all simultaneously arrive.

As to whether it's good or bad for travelers, it all depends on how well it's done. Personally I prefer clearing Customs at the beginning or the end of my trip, if I can. It prevents me from needing elongated periods of time to make a flight connection, and relieves me of stress. Whether I clear US Customs and Immigration in Toronto/Calgary or Denver/Minneapolis is not a huge issue to me since I'd be connecting anyway.

PhotoJim

And vice versa. In fact the clearance is done at London St. Pancras and at Paris Gare du Nord in the case of the Paris<->London services.

I just travelled this route and we cleared French immigration (no Customs since it was the EU) at London St. Pancras. It reminded me of clearing Swiss Customs & Immigration a few years ago; the officer didn't say a word to either of us.

Alex71

I think the train example is of setting up a light touch passport control in a neighboring country on the same continent if it logistically makes sense is a completely different story from setting up preclearance facilities with invasive questioning, fingerprinting, mug shots etc., that likely violate the laws of the host countries and therefor require immunity of the agents.

Also, I don't see why from a commecial perspective a European airline would want to have this at their hub. When choosing a flight that requires a connection factors are:

1. price
2. end-to-end travel time
3. convenience, peace of mind

For an American airline on the other hand, it would be attractive to move this problem out of their hubs, wich explains their support.

Blogndog

Exactly. All this does it give them the ability of pressuring you to "co-operate" or miss your flight. I once waited them out for 11 hours at IAD before they finally realised I wasn't going to give them what they wanted, nor was I going to be intimidated.

cdn1

I'm glad we don't have to travel to the US pretty much.
It's always best to deal with customs/immigration at the other end (after arrival) rather than having to deal with it before the flight and ruining your journey with the experience beforehand.

Even if people's names are similar, their passport numbers are NEVER same. So quit with the stupid excuses for unnecessary secondary inspection CBP