Infuriating: US Immigration Is A Complete Disaster

For all the TRILLIONS of dollars we spend on 'national security' we sure get a low return.

@Pete, not so fast buddy, I haven't been to Australia, but I have been through numerous European airports and have waited a good amount of time. Most of the time its about 20 minutes, however one time I waited almost 2 hours to enter Lisbon. Ive waited an hour multiple times to enter Mexico. not everybody that has a "ally" passport is a "good guy " or isn't going to break the rules. BTW, you (ESTA and even B1/B2) are allowed to use the APC machines just like any US citizen... In all fairness, yes this is a big mess, but what do you expect when the AIRLINES schedule flight arrival times at the same time for their banks. YOU are the ones who buy the tickets and times. Everyone wants to arrive at a "good time", well when you have 7-8 777/747/A330 and then another 5-10 737/A320 all arrive within 45 minutes of each other (on a normal day), what do you expect. At most there are what, 30-50 officers on duty to process several THOUSAND people. When you think it takes about 30-90 seconds to process a foreign traveler, and maybe 20-30 seconds to process an American, and thats without any other "stuff" to look for on the computer, yea its gonna take a while. Because everyone decided to come home on the same day at the same time, you can't really put the blame on Trump, not that im letting him off on this, but come on man. There have been long immigration lines under Obama, Bush, Trump, and in foreign countries as well. But in reality, tell me what country is truly prepared for this mess. This is unprecedented.

Yes, I applaud Australia, New Zealand and the UK for the electronic gates!

This has long been a problem at major US airports, waiting and waiting and waiting in a huge line that moves at tectonic pace, with only two or three agents working despite their being six or eight booths, spending ten minutes interrogating every passenger, even though you have a current ESTA, an onward ticket, and your passport was issued by a country that's been a staunch US ally for the best part of a century. Do you know what happens when you rock-up with a US passport at an Australian airport? You get to sail right through the electronic entry gates. Time to return the favor, America.

That’s what you get with massive government bureaucracy. That’s what you get with government workers earning excessive salaries, benefits and with unions preventing actual efficiency and competence. People think that because 1 guy is elected President it is going to change the trajectory of big government agencies and departments. Nothing further from the truth. As we have seen with more socialist Spain and Italy, more government and “free” health systems didn’t save them from the virus. People use the example of Nordic countries as to how efficient and beneficial socialism can be but they don’t realize that a country of 5 million mostly racially and ethnically homogenous people with the same culture and way of life is a lot easier than in a country of 326 million. Canada is touted for cheaper drugs and it’s healthcare system but Canada has 35 million people. And let’s not forget these countries like Sweden and Canada throw away their advantage of limited population with excessive immigration from non western countries. The mass increase in violent crime especially against women, drain on benefits and dissemination of low culture as a result of African and Arab migration has hurt Sweden. The dangers of an open borders policy was evidenced by the SARS outbreak in Toronto years ago. It wasn’t western tourists for the most part who spread COVID-19 from China and other countries to the west. It was ethnic Chinese who live in the U.S. who had families they visited in China and then brought it back to the U.S. It was ethnic Iranians who visited family in Iran and returned to Italy, the U.S. Canada and other European countries. Remember the Ukrainian airline plane crash in January where many of the victims were ethnic Iranians who lived in Canada. Tourism is great and It is very easy to shut down tourism. It is very hard when people have familial ties to foreign non western countries and pose a big risk to the western world.