New GE immigration procedure at IAD
May 30, 2017, 8:11 pm
#1
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Join Date: May 1998
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New GE immigration procedure at IAD
In my hundreds of GE experiences at the IAD main terminal immigration and customs facility, including a few weeks ago, it went like this: You get down the escalator from the moon buggy, stay right and hit one of the GE machines. Take your ticket to the booths and sometimes the GE booth is manned and sometimes not. I've seen them stop an occasional GE for a look at the ticket and maybe even a question or two. Mostly if the booth is manned he or she just smiles at you and waves you along.
Then you get to the customs exit and maybe the guy collecting your ticket at the front of the GE line asks you a question, but mostly says 'welcome home' as he takes your ticket.
Yesterday not only was the immigration booth manned but there was a queue to get to the ICEr at immigration that backed up through the GE machines half way to the escalator. The ICEr was stopping and questioning each and every GE, holding passport up, looking at faces, comparing to GE ticket. We were at the front of the moon buggy so the queue 'only' took 5 or 10 minutes to get through this procedure. People toward the back were probably queuing for 20 minutes. At the end of the interrogation, he kept the GE tickets there...which worried me because how would I be able to use the GE line at customs exit.
Except then at customs exit there was no queue at all for either GE or regular....but instead a series of new 'pull-offs' set up where ICErs were pulling people over to look at their stuff and interrogate further, kind of like cops set up with a series of speed traps.
I'm guessing the change was made to alleviate the massive queues that used to form to exit customs...but the GE area before immigration are NOT set up for this. It caused a lot of confusion as people used the machines then sort of had to work their way back to the back of the line once they got their GE ticket. And in any case, GE customers have already been 'extreme vetted.' Leave us alone!
Not cool.
Then you get to the customs exit and maybe the guy collecting your ticket at the front of the GE line asks you a question, but mostly says 'welcome home' as he takes your ticket.
Yesterday not only was the immigration booth manned but there was a queue to get to the ICEr at immigration that backed up through the GE machines half way to the escalator. The ICEr was stopping and questioning each and every GE, holding passport up, looking at faces, comparing to GE ticket. We were at the front of the moon buggy so the queue 'only' took 5 or 10 minutes to get through this procedure. People toward the back were probably queuing for 20 minutes. At the end of the interrogation, he kept the GE tickets there...which worried me because how would I be able to use the GE line at customs exit.
Except then at customs exit there was no queue at all for either GE or regular....but instead a series of new 'pull-offs' set up where ICErs were pulling people over to look at their stuff and interrogate further, kind of like cops set up with a series of speed traps.
I'm guessing the change was made to alleviate the massive queues that used to form to exit customs...but the GE area before immigration are NOT set up for this. It caused a lot of confusion as people used the machines then sort of had to work their way back to the back of the line once they got their GE ticket. And in any case, GE customers have already been 'extreme vetted.' Leave us alone!
Not cool.
Jun 2, 2017, 4:28 pm
#3
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