US transit - Security Logic?
 

I am really interested in hearing the logic (from a security point of view) of the transit system for international/international flights in the US.
I've just flown CDG - LAX - YVR. On arriving at LAX I had to go through US immigration (all I had to write on my visa waiver form was "in transit to Canada") whereupon my passport was stamped into the US. I then had to pick up my luggage (even though it had been checked all the way through from CDG to YVR). So here I am in possession of a stamped passport and with all my bags... What's to stop me just staying in the US? More worryingly for the US, what's to stop any ill intentioned potential illegal immigrant doing exactly the same thing?
Obviously I just put my bags back in at the interline desk and hopped over to departures to go back through all the security screening process. But it left me thinking..
Wouldn't it be easier just to keep int/int transit passengers airside like most European countries do?
Saves the passenger all that immigration rigmarole and saves the immigration officers all that work.

Most US airports, even the big international ones, don't have air-side transfers. So the only way to get from TBIT (Tom Bradley International Pit) to the typical US domestic onward flight is via the pavement (i.e. land side). The concept of a side door for true transit pax doesn't seem to have been/be a part of the planning process.

You'd become an undocumented immigrant (of which we have millions). And as a law-abiding alien, you certainly wouldn't do that. ;)

Exactly. Good point.

You're right, except for one thing: Such a sensible system would prevent US immigration from "removing" harmless Canadians to places like Syria so they could be tortured (didn't this happen a few years ago?) or from detaining aliens who have no intention of staying in the US.

Our "be very afraid of everyone not a US citizen" policy makes absolutely no sense. But a nation of cowards and idiots gets the government it deserves.

By virtue of being a citizen of a visa waiver country, you're considered a low risk to overstay. Since you don't need a visa, there is nothing technically wrong with leaving the airport and staying in the US - just because you wrote 'in transit to Canada' doesn't mean US Immigration didn't 'clock you in' to the US under the VWP.

If you were not from a visa waiver country, you would need a visitor visa to transit and would be admitted to the US under that visitor visa during your transit time.

The Transit Without Visa program was eliminated years ago.

Before INS became part of Homeland (in)security, my future wife was denied admission to the U.S. because she had the intent to become a resident, but did not yet have a resident visa. Before my future wife could get a resident visa, we needed to get married; so we decided that Toronto, Ontario was the easiest place to go; so I booked her a flight BRU-ORD-YYZ. When she arrived at ORD, she was escorted from the Int. terminal 5 to the domestic-side terminal. She said that she was not allowed out of her escort's site until she boarded.

Note: In 2001, you could transit U.S. without a visa, even if you were inadmissable to the U.S.

Don't forget the farce of stepping into the US - even for a minute - means the VWP clock starts, so if you are on a long stay in Mexico / Canada / Carribbean and then fly home via the US you can be refused entry as you've spent too much "time" in the US.

Hi Alan,

Doesn't the clock stop ticking when you hand in your VWP receipt upon taking your flight to Canada/Mexico/Caribbean?

Cheers,

GenevaFlyer

Hi all,

Just to add to this. The majority of flights leaving a US airport are domestic. In Europe on the other hands, the majority of flights (prior to the introduction of Schengen) is/was international, so you always needed to plan for immigration barriers and transiting passengers. It's a lot easier to add 1 barrier between two terminals and remove other controls (as for example in AMS or CPH) rather than re-designing the whole airport layout to suddenly include immigration.

Cheers,

GenevaFlyer

There are plenty of airports in the USA - particularly major international gateways - that were designed specifically to handle international transit passengers. No, the smaller ones won't have it, but ATL E, EWR C3, MIA, LAX TBIT, IAH E and many others were all designed to be able to handle transit that way. Because of the idiotic policy that the US has instituted they are not doing so, but they were built to handle it correctly.