Is it my imagination or has American Customs and Immigration become needlessly slow with long lines, redundant tasks, and baffling processes that seems to have no benefit, certainly for the traveller, but also to the agencies gathering the information.

Here is my recent experience.

Bob and I land in Atlanta at 2:30PM. Our flight to San Diego leaves at 6:10. This leaves a comfortable three and half hours layover at Hartsfield. We even joke about having too much time for a layover.

Our gate is approximately a ten minute walk to the Immigration line entrance. Not a bad idea after being on a plane for 9 hours and restrooms at nice intervals. So far so good.

We read the entrance to line. There is a very sensible division American/Canadian/Green card holders/ Visa holders go to the right and all other passport holders go to the left. I understand perfectly. Or do I? I move to the right where a woman in uniform tells me I need to go to the left. I explain that I am an American and point to the sign. She gives me the tired and frustrated look of an overworked bureaucrat who has been asked the same question all day is extremely irritated to have to reply for the thousandth time. “And I am telling you today you need to go to the left.” She didn’t look like someone in the mood for a follow up question; we moved to the line on the left.

It is 2:45PM

I am worried because I can see passport holder on the right with theirAmerican passports. On the plus side, the line is moving reasonably fast, and we spy another Customs official at the front of this line who seems to be giving instructions to people when they reach him. We have plenty of time and can afford a few minutes in the wrong line and he will move us to correct line and all will be well.

The line snakes through like an amusement park line with cut backs at a rapid enough clip to maintain my confidence that this will all be over soon. We finally reach the front of the line where I explain we are Americans. The man tells me to get into the line on the right. I stifle an urge to ask why the other Customs official told us to get into the line on the left as we have spent the last 15 minutes in the wrong line, only be told now to join the correct line for American passport holders. However I confused I am, I know enough not to challenge a bureaucrat under stress. This could put me in a very long line to nowhere. More importantly, I am confident that we are now in the correct line.

It is 3:00PM

The line slows significantly with short spurts of movement interspersed with long spans of gridlock. Still, with two hours to go, confident that we have plenty of time. While snaking through the line, I reach the point where I would have entered the line 15 minutes earlier. I overhear a young immigration employee asks the uniformed woman who directed everyone to the left “why don’t we just direct American passport holders to the right, why are we telling them to go to the left? This doesn’t make any sense.” YES. I wholeheartedly agree. My ears perk up because, if nothing else, I might get an explanation for this misrouting. Unfortunately, she responds to him in a muted supervisory tone why. I unfortunately am unable to hear her reply. I do, however, feel my sanity is confirmed when the young man, who speaks in much more clearer and louder tone to assist with my eavesdropping, remains unconvinced by her explanation, “ I still don’t understand but whatever you say, you are the boss.”

It is 3:15PM

The line moves forward in fits and starts. A very happy immigration official keeps us entertained by loudly directing us with snappy inspirational instructions and song. He sings, “Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.” He gives jovial instructions and tries to engage us in conversation, “This line is for American passport holders with a Delta connection, tell me what is a Delta connection?” No one responds. “I can’t hear you,” he yells enthusiastically. A few passengers weakly reply not in unison and not very loudly so I am not sure what they say but it seems to satisfy him as he bellows, “That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. You flew in on a Delta flight and you are flying out on a Delta flight. I don’t think anyone actually said this but then I couldn’t hear anything. Everyone in this part of the line seems amused with him though as he is trying to lighten the drudgery of standing in a long line for a long time with song, with light hearted questions. I wonder why every customs office doesn’t have such a happy worker greeting incoming passengers.

It is 3:30PM.

We are about six feet from the happy immigration man, I now want to gag him. Or anything that would shut him up. His mouth moves incessantly. An endless flood of words. His ever evolving routine is now about how great Atlanta is and how lucky you are to be in the greatest city in the whole wide world with occasional outbursts of “Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.” His song is like a knife through my tired skull. I, however stifle my irritation, because I am almost to the front of the line. The end is near.

It is 3:45PM.

When I reach the front of the line, I am directed to one of the hundreds of computer terminals. As I don’t travel internationally much, I am unsure what to do. The instructions on the terminal say to insert my passport into a slot to start the process. After several mistakes I manage to get the passport properly slotted and I successfully complete the on line customs form. I am on a roll until the terminal instructs me to use the terminal to take a picture of myself. The instructions are clear. The picture must have my full face with my eyes open looking into the screen. The camera is far from intuitive. In the first picture my forehead is missing. I retake but this time my chin missing. I try again but this one my eyes are closed. I keep taking pictures and discarding, hoping for a full face with my eyes open. Bob comes by to see what is taking me so long. I show him my latest photograph. He says that immigration official told him not to worry about the picture. Just take what I have and get into the next line where an immigration will collect my picture and custom form. I print my picture with my forehead missing and my eyes firmly closed and join yet another line.

It is 4:00PM.

The immigration official doesn’t even look at my photograph. He eyeballs me and then my passport. He decided I matched my passport photo. Now I can’t understand why I took the trouble and time to take a picture in the first place if he wasn’t going to bother to look at. I thought this was the whole point. That there was some computer program that matches this photograph with my immigration photo and determine if they match. I was kind of impressed with all of up-to-date technology made to catch the ne’re-do-wells of the world. But no, I was wrong, it all boiled down to the immigration officials eyeballs. Why did I spend the last 10 minutes taking the picture if it was all up to him in the first place? Time is slipping away so I again skip questioning him about it. We run to collect our baggage which has been on the luggage carousel long enough to gather dust. I pick it up and run a few feet to chuck it onto a conveyer belt in front of about ten customs official who all look like they would rather be having a cigarette. They point me to another line.

It is 4:15PM.

Yes, you heard correctly, another line. Why? I can’t understand. I gave immigration my customs documents and he looked at my passport over and custom guys missed their opportunity to search my luggage as I already sent the luggage back to Delta. Can’t I just run frantically to my gate? What else needs to be done? Bob tells me that we are going through security. Which baffles me. I just got off of a plane which was secure, why do I need to go through security yet again. Because once I left the plane and went to Customs and Immigration, I left a secure environment and entered into an unsecure environment.

Which seems a rather unnecessary step to add to passengers who, after all, are trying to catch a connecting flight. Doesn’t it make more sense to have the hundred or so Immigration and Customs employees go through security when they come to work and just make the Immigration and Customs section of the airport secure? Instead of requiring thousands of already vetted passengers at the nations busiest airport go through security yet again when they are under a looming time crunch to meet their connecting flights? I yell into the abyss and, of course, join the security line.

It is 4:30PM.

I am now getting really worried that we will miss our connecting flight. Other passengers obviously have the same worry, so several passengers take turns going to the TSA official and explaining their concerns. She, after several such encounters, yells out to everyone in the security line that getting out of line and asking her about your looming connecting flight won’t make the line move any faster, just stay in line and TSA will get you through as quickly as possible. I hate to call someone a liar but I will. She is a liar. We could plainly see that, on a rare occasion, someone would come up to her and after irritatingly listening to their query she directs them out of the line into another line which, to my untrained eyes, seems to be moving faster. I wonder what the time threshold for joining the faster line is because very few people are invited in. As we are still over an hour before we need to be at the gate, Bob and I opt to stay in line and keep our fingers crossed. The line moves reasonably fast and we make it through security at 4:45PM where we frantically run to our gate. The good news is I had roughly 10 minutes to toss down a martini before our plane boarded.

Two hours and fifteen minutes.