Welcome to America
I was shocked to hear today about the ordeal Arcadia passengers suffered recently at the hand of US immigration officers.
The passengers who are enjoying a 72 night Alaskan adventure cruise arrived in to LA on the 26th May and after landing on US soil nine times didn’t expect any disruption.
How wrong they were! After one of the passengers complained about the how long the checks were taking the US officials decided to take revenge by insisting all 2000 take a full biometric tests. They consisted of being finger printed on both hand, retina scans, passports scanned and each passenger questioned. The whole ordeal was topped off when the board control computer system “failed” delaying things even further.
In all passengers we’re waiting for 7 hours in 80f heat with no access to water or toilets and bear in mind many of which are elderly.
I am disgusted about the whole thing and shocked that the US thinks it has the right to treat people like this. What do you think?
2 Comments on “Welcome to America”
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After living in the US and working 4 days a week at a US airport i have seen the way they the immergrations can act. Somedays every man and his dog get straight through with next to no checks, the next they stop and question each and every person, i have seen some discusting behavior from the officials. There is no consistancy in what they do, and now they also have the cheek to charge for an ESTA which 9 out of 10 times they never look at! A great way of making a first impression!! WELCOME TO THE US OF A???
I’ve read conflicting information about the Arcadia from both P&O and passengers.
No disagreement with the full checks done but keep in mine two things : each port of entry is fully responsible for verifying who is on the ship not based on the last American port, think a cruise stop in San Juan after leaving from Miami and the other point is who got on from the last stop.
It was a small group of passengers that complained and refused to go thru inspection as they felt they had done prior or planned to not leave the ship and each deck was called off the ship one by one not the entire ship in one shot.
I agree that a lot of port and airports do not provide comfort facilities while waiting or allow you to leave the line.
Can only hope customs people like that get caught in a major holdup one time to taste what it is like.