How long to plan for first time POE at airport?

[Fr8dog 413]

recommend 4 hrs (as most here).

 

If you get unlucky you drop in at the same time as a bunch of other international flights and then the line to the first desk can easily be an hour. Then it's of to secondary where it all depends on how many are in front of you, why they got sent to secondary and how understaffed they are.

Once you get to the actual desk it will take minutes.

 

If your plane is the only international flight (unlikely in ATL) and you are one of the first ones of the plane. You can be done with the whole things in 5 minutes.

 

[oldgreg 27]

5 hours ago, Fr8dog said:

recommend 4 hrs (as most here).

 

If you get unlucky you drop in at the same time as a bunch of other international flights and then the line to the first desk can easily be an hour. Then it's of to secondary where it all depends on how many are in front of you, why they got sent to secondary and how understaffed they are.

Once you get to the actual desk it will take minutes.

 

If your plane is the only international flight (unlikely in ATL) and you are one of the first ones of the plane. You can be done with the whole things in 5 minutes.

 

I know what you are saying. Experience this every time I go to Costa Rica rica. I swear four planes arrive right before we do and it takes forever to clear customs. 

 

To your second point, I booked the seats right by the door so we will be first off the plane. 

 

Thank you for the response.

[PGA 330]

Another point too is not to carry a ton of luggage with you. We didn't need a layover at FLL fortunately but since we were all moving from Peru we had a ton of suitcases. The officer though was pretty accommodating and said in order to save us (and them I'm sure) a lot of time he would send my wife to secondary and (since my daughter and I are US citizens) we could go through with all of the luggage and meet her outside. 

 

So my tip: don't travel with all your worldly possessions on the initial trip and especially no food, no plants, no cigarettes, or anything else that may arouse suspicion . 

[OldUser 9,918]

3 hours ago, PGA said:

no plants, no cigarettes, or anything else that may arouse suspicion . 

And no bags of powdered sugar, laundry powder or baking soda either 😅 

All of this is readily available in the US.

[PGA 330]

16 minutes ago, OldUser said:

And no bags of powdered sugar, laundry powder or baking soda either 😅 

All of this is readily available in the US.

Yes, and protein powder often draws a lot of unwanted scrutiny. Though the thing I am questioned about far, far more than anything is cigarettes.....every single time. 

Edited July 3 by PGA

[S2N 316]

23 hours ago, PGA said:

Though the thing I am questioned about far, far more than anything is cigarettes.....every single time. 

Three reasons for that:

1) Cigarettes beyond the exemption limit are subject to both excise tax and customs duty and unlike alcohol where it’s harder for it to add up due to the weight of liquids and what most people are transporting, cigarettes you can get to material tax owed very easily.

2) A few decades ago smuggling cigarettes into the U.S. was a major funding source for Hezbollah and so CBP never really quite got over giving them extra scrutiny even if it hasn’t been an issue in a minute.

3) There’s complex regulations around re-importing US exported cigarettes and it isn’t permitted beyond a small quantity for tax reasons, so they want to verify those don’t apply.

 

1 and 3 are the bigger deals: CBP is a taxation agency as much as they are border police and they take the taxation bit very seriously.

Edited July 4 by S2N