polonius

You don't see this? Are you blind? I don't ANYONE who hasn't visited the USA lately and said that was the last time they were going there. Even those who reluctlantly return because of business or family connections are deeply offended by the treatment they received. Why would you look at a situation in which would-be visitors are required to pay 100 dollars, stand in line for hours and wait for months just to get an appointment for an interview, are then subjected to a series of inappropriate and ignorant questions by some low-level bureaucrat just to get a visa, are on arrival in the USA subjected to demands for a photo and fingerprints, are prevented from using their mobiles, and are generally treated like criminals, often being detained and/or searched for several hours, and then arrive at the conclusion that "this reduction has other roots?" Are you suggesting this treatment hasn't has any impact?

PhlyingRPh

The other poster may be referring to the fact that the entire ordeal of applying for and obtaining a visa, traveling to and being processed into the U.S. impacts different groups of people at different nodes.

Any traveler from what the U.S. perceives as a developing country will find the entire experience to be extremely demeaning and frustrating. Most travelers from countries the U.S. perceives as being developed and "friendly" face minimal hardship but this hardship occurs at the node involving admission to the U.S.

I too know of many people who no longer travel to the U.S. or who have chosen to study/work elsewhere - America's loss, not theirs. However, as I mentioned earlier - every man has his price. Some are willing to put up with the hassles discussed here because they feel the rewards outweigh the pain and because the cost of a U.S. vacation may be substantially lower.

alanR

I suspect that anyone from a developed country also finds the entire experience to be extremely demeaning & frustrating

alanR

Most civilised countries keep transit passengers safely airside and generally they don't need the same level of visa (if any) in order to transit the country. They also generally don't have to collect & recheck their luggage, fill in forms about the purpose of the visit, tell immigration officers the purpose of their visit, don't have to be fingerprinted or photographed and don't normally have to be worried that some immigration type decides that they are to be denied entry and so sent back to their departure point even though all they wanted to do was get from A to B and it was their misfortune to do so via a country that can't design an airport to keep transit passengers away from people wanting to visit their country

essxjay

The U.S. is an equal opportunist in the demeaning and frustration department. So I was gunna say, how would a non-U.S. citizen/resident know the difference in how he or she was perceived viz a viz nationals of other countries?

Kiwi Flyer

The difference is I can enter on visa waiver so save the extra hassle of the visa in advance process. That said, US is still one of the most unpleasant countries to enter even with a visa waiver.

oiRRio

Well as a long time reader of the Telegraph I’ve become used to Charles Starmer-Smith’s and Francisco Kellet's less than balanced take on events stateside in their travel blogs. Last week the subject of CSS’s ire was American mileage runners. A couple of months ago it was the great US airport "robbery" of $10 although the much larger UK imposed APD doesn’t appear to be an issue. This week FK touches on this very subject, puts the decline down to the security issues, slips in a gratuitous dig about Freedom fries and finishes with the charming comment about the US. “It almost makes you feel sorry for them. Almost.” In short given the ill informed rubbish they write it would appear that ironically enough for travel writers they need to get out more.

By the same token Irish people are heading to the US in record numbers to avail of the low dollar even for very short shopping trips that last a couple of days so it can’t be the US immigration/security procedures that are causing the problem.

Clearly we need to look elsewhere. @:-) Ah, Swanhunter and Duchy the voices of reason.
This is a good point and one which both you and Duchy make. Another factor is that Brown’s stealth taxes have steadily squeezed disposable income in the UK so frivolous shopping trips to the US aren’t exactly high on the agenda for many at the moment. BTW this may well happen wrt to Irish visitors in the next 12-24 months due to a pending economic downturn at which point the decline in numbers will no doubt be all down to the fingerprinting and the $10 charge as well.

oiRRio

Not exceptional at all as this mirrors my experience and those of my friends. I've had pleasant chats with US immigration/custom guys about Irish ancestors, and my trips to Brasil. I suspect part of the reason we don’t find the US immigration/customs process to be so intolerable and "unpleasant" is that we don’t roll up to the desk with the ‘tude. Also the TSA people I encounter are pretty much all sound but I guess it helps that I have everything ready to go, BP in hand and am pleasant to them. @:-)

In the last couple of months I’ve flown almost 70 k miles mainly on AA and transited the US 6 times by choice via DFW, JFK, MIA. The AA legs to/from the US were a doddle and my top 3 travel peeves all occurred outside the US
1) Waiting almost an hour to use BA’s “fast” bag drop at CDG which took longer than my 6 entries into the US.
2) Excessively long exit queues at GIG when the Policia Federal were doing a work to rule.
3) Lengthy security lines at DUB at 6am on a Wed morning.

As an aside MIA as an entry point has improved immeasurably in recent years. Queues are much shorter and attitudes way better than when I first started using it 8-10 years ago. ^

Agreed, but hey let’s not let the facts get in the way of some good old DHS/TSA bashing.

oiRRio

On the contrary it’s a pleasure to visit a country that at least endeavours to keep track of who’s entering it even if no system can be 100% watertight. Makes me quite envious given the approach over here so nothing to apologise for. ^

GUWonder

Even Mugabe's Zimbabwe "at least endeavours to keep track of who's entering". A pleasure to visit there too "even if no system can be 100% watertight".

terrier

Huh. In my recent experience (i.e. since the new terminal opened), TLV's a great airport to fly from. Security is a breeze compared to any major US airport (to say nothing of LHR) and unlike with the TSA, the experience is consistently courteous and devoid of pointless theatre.

Now, I might have (OMNI-appropriate) reasons not to want to spend money in Israel but airport security hassles haven't been a factor for years.

The US does not have a monopoly on surly, intimidating border agents. As an American, I regularly get grilled at immigration flying into the UK or Canada, coming close to being refused entry at LHR some years ago (while studying at Oxford popped down to Paris one weekend and hadn't packed proof of my enrollment.)

Never had a problem outside the commonwealth (modulo the cartons of Marlboros that were occasionally necessary to get an entry visa in third-world nations). Not sure why.

Spiff

Sorry to disagree, but I will not submit to an interrogation for the privilege of departing TLV.

iahphx

Yeah, I suspect fingerprinting is here to stay, no matter who's in the White House. Personally, it seems like a needle in a haystack approach, but NO ONE in the American political scene is going to want to appear weak on int'l terrorism (except perhaps someone like Obama, but that's why he has virtually no chance of being the next President).

It does seem like there should be a bureaucratic solution to some of the insane visa rules (not sure why this would matter to Brits, though), but this may take a while. After all, the State Department can't even get passports into the hands of all the Americans who want them these days.

In general, though, I think it's crazy for Brits (and other Europeans) not to take advantage of the current extremely favorable exchange rates to visit the US. Let's face it: Europe's economy isn't exactly the envy of the world these days, so the idea that its currencies will continue to appreciate against the Dollar forever seems like fantasy.

PhlyingRPh

Someone thinking of visiting the U.S. that hails from a developing country has to interface with the bureaucracy at more nodes than someone from say, Britain or Germany. The visa process is expensive and arduous - involves the potential of traveling thousands of miles to the closest U.S. visa issuance point for an interview that is probably better classified as an interrogation. A few weeks pass and then one's passport is returned with either a visa or a stamp indicating that the U.S. has rejected a visa application. Very few applicants from Britain or Germany would have to go through this.

polonius

No doubt because Iberia has moved it's North American hub from MIA to YYZ because the constant hassling of its transit passengers by US Customs and Border Protection.