GUWonder

Yes. The CBP's checks at the gate/jetbridge for international flights are done for customs (export-control, including reporting requirements related to such) and/or other departure control purposes.

While the TSA does its own gate/jetbridge checks or stands around for purposes of show -- sometimes for the same flights where CBP is doing the international departure control checks -- I was not referring to TSA checks in the earlier post.

Sanicorpus

How about Spain?

N1120A

The CBP thugs do harass people in the jetway, going both ways, especially on flights to/from Asia. They generally claim its for currency reporting, though they often ask absolutely inane, inappropriate and unrelated questions.

PhlyingRPh

TSA got the idea from th CBP pigs, who have been harassing Middle Eastern and South Asian people with jetway checks for a couple of decades now.

William S

Especially after 9/11 US has become a far less welcoming country to visit for foreign tourists. I am not talking about Americans in general which I always find very friendly, but the CBP. And as we all know first impression is very important and the CBP doesn't do that job very well. Luckily I am their ideal passenger (blond and tall and blue eyes) so they didn't harass me, but I do believe having an Arab look is a clear beg to be sent to secondary.

catocony

US citizens don't need a valid passport to leave the country. That said, I agree with the advice to get a new one at a passport agency office before leaving, just in case. I've always had very good experiences at US embassies and consulates abroad, and with the passport agencies here except for the one in Miami, when they refused to give me a 48-page book at my last renewal "because we're out of inserts".

Phlying, what's you're beef? You sound like the stereotypical guy who wonders why he's always singled out without realizing he's acting out and thus causing himself to be singled out in the first place. I've lived in a number of countries and still travel internationally a half-dozen times a year and have never really heard anything bad about service for US citizens at embassies and consulates. From foreign nationals trying to get visas, sure, and from US guys trying to get visas for girlfriends and such, absolutely. But for routine stuff like passport renewals, page additions and passport replacements after theft or losing it, it's usually very smooth sailing.

GUWonder

I wouldn't be so categorical.

If that is how it sounds to someone, the hearing needs a check as a wide selection of posts indicate exactly the opposite of what you suggest.

There are substantial groups of US citizens (not in violation of any law in the US) for whom the above-mentioned "routine stuff" items are not delivered outside of the US in a manner considered very smooth sailing of the sort most US citizens of European descent would expect and receive.

catocony

One of the reasons I don't post here that much is the chronic sniping by guys like GU, who try to snuff out any observation which doesn't fit their particular viewpoint. Cognitive dissonance can be a real pain, but you would be advised to perhaps accept what others say - or write? You hate TSA, you hate CBP, you hate the State Department, you seem to hate pretty much everything. While I myself hate TSA, I have had mostly non-negative - not good, just not bad - with them over the years, although with a good number of negative ones - which anyone who flies weekly also has. I have had uniformly good success with our consulates and embassies, and I don't know of any other citizen who has had bad experiences. And, after 3 years of living abroad in 3 different countries, and spending a good portion of 12 other years traveling and working abroad, I have had a large number of first-hand experiences with the embassies and consulates myself and very close second-hand experiences with hundreds of friends, coworkers and various other Americans I've spoken with. From Europe to the Middle East to East Asia to Central America to South America. That's my experience, and thus, the response I gave.

If you don't like it - and you're the internet tuff guy who called me a liar several times in the past but never actually specified what I was supposedly lying about - I don't really care, but the truth is the truth. The fact that I don't see an evil plot unfolding around every corner doesn't make me wrong.

GUWonder

A great claim, but worthy of a myth.

That's yet more myth, but it makes for an interesting read. I hate none of the above, but I do give each the criticism it is due and don't presume that complaints by others running contrary to my own treatment are unrepresentative of what also occurs and does deserve criticism.

Your own personal experience with the State Department's ACS is akin to what I receive, but I also know better than take my own experience as being reflective of the way it works for others, particularly not for those of some kinds of (lawful, largely immutable) other backgrounds different than my own or that of persons with whom I am most familiar on a personal basis.

I'm sure your experience is more reflective of the experience that most Americans receive outside of the US from ACS, but then again most Americans are not ethnic/religious minorities hit by a neo-PC tolerance for intolerance directed at such ethnic/religious minorities.

That's more myths, from beginning to end. But everyone is entitled to their own myths.

Ari

If that's the case, why is everyone trying to scare the OP?

GUWonder

If everyone were trying to scare the OP, then that would be because there is a basis to unfortunate/inconvenient outcomes. Even if not, there's still a sound basis to the concerns for others.