4 ms·

This is definitely the result of unintended consequences. They added specific lanes for nationals to use; nationals are the taxpayers therefore they're the one

This is definitely the result of unintended consequences. They added specific lanes for nationals to use; nationals are the taxpayers therefore they're the ones who are most listened to. As a consequence the nationals lines were always fast and well staffed, while the international entry lines grew longer and longer. If they hadn't have split the lines, everyone would be on the same "side" and complaints from nationals would result in improved passport control for everyone.

beojan 8y ago
They added queues for nationals because a large proportion of the people entering the country are people returning from a trip abroad.
simonbyrne 8y ago
My suggestion: any politician who states "[country name] is open for business" should be required to enter through the foreigners line.
thaumasiotes 8y ago
I just entered the US at SFO a couple of weeks ago. There were big (permanent) signs up directing us to a citizens line and a noncitizens line. They weren't taking that especially seriously; there was also a staffer at the fork directing citizens into the noncitizens line and noncitizens into the citizens line. My guess is that this was an attempt to balance the waiting time in each line. It was a horrible system, largely because the system was barely able to admit noncitizens at all. Both lines crawled as the noncitizens stepped up to a booth and were s-l-o-w-l-y fingerprinted and eventually waved on their way. Contrast what happened just a couple weeks earlier when I entered China. Fingerprinting was required for entering noncitizens there too. But you didn't have it done at the booth while everyone waited in line behind you. You got yourself fingerprinted at one of a row of unmanned machines, got a receipt from the machine, and then went to get in line. All the immigration booth did was take your receipt.
- rogerbinns 8y ago
  What they do is as a plane arrives, they direct people to the appropriate side. The citizens line process a lot quicker, so as they get empty, some non-citizen queuers are told to move over to the now mostly empty citizen lines. Then the next plane's passengers arrive and the whole process is repeated. ie the primary goal is that citizens go quick, and the others are second priority. But as you noticed, it starts getting messy as multiple plane arrivals overlap with each other, queues progress at random rates, and it isn't a particular effective system anyway. The booths work the same way as you described China's, but have additional complications (eg people using the app, and the receipt.) I had the misfortune of arriving on an international flight to SFO when they first got those booths. Some official decided to constantly shout and berate everyone trying to figure them out (he would keep contradicting the screens, or interrupt people trying to read them etc). Thankfully I haven't experienced that since. And it used to be a lot worse. Instead of a single long queue, there would be long separate queues for each desk. It became quite an art trying to deduce which lines would process quickly.
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    > The booths work the same way as you described China's, but have additional complications (eg people using the app, and the receipt.) But when you use the Chinese fingerprinting machine, you're not holding up the immigration line. This makes a big difference in queue times! SFO is wasting an incredible amount of passenger time by making everyone in line wait for everyone else to get fingerprinted.
    - rogerbinns 8y ago
      The last time I went through the lines at SFO there was roughly speaking a queue for the machines, and then after that lines for the booths & officers. If one person took 10 minutes on a machine, it wouldn't matter since the machine queue still flowed as did the booth queue. Have they reorganised it again?
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
pebers 8y ago
Specific lanes for citizens of the country have existed for a very long time, but the article calls the issue out as having mostly arisen in the last three years. Seems unlikely that a thing that had already been there for decades has caused the (apparently) sudden decline.

beojan 8y ago

They added queues for nationals because a large proportion of the people entering the country are people returning from a trip abroad.

simonbyrne 8y ago

My suggestion: any politician who states "[country name] is open for business" should be required to enter through the foreigners line.

thaumasiotes 8y ago

I just entered the US at SFO a couple of weeks ago. There were big (permanent) signs up directing us to a citizens line and a noncitizens line. They weren't taking that especially seriously; there was also a staffer at the fork directing citizens into the noncitizens line and noncitizens into the citizens line. My guess is that this was an attempt to balance the waiting time in each line. It was a horrible system, largely because the system was barely able to admit noncitizens at all. Both lines crawled as the noncitizens stepped up to a booth and were s-l-o-w-l-y fingerprinted and eventually waved on their way. Contrast what happened just a couple weeks earlier when I entered China. Fingerprinting was required for entering noncitizens there too. But you didn't have it done at the booth while everyone waited in line behind you. You got yourself fingerprinted at one of a row of unmanned machines, got a receipt from the machine, and then went to get in line. All the immigration booth did was take your receipt.

rogerbinns 8y ago
What they do is as a plane arrives, they direct people to the appropriate side. The citizens line process a lot quicker, so as they get empty, some non-citizen queuers are told to move over to the now mostly empty citizen lines. Then the next plane's passengers arrive and the whole process is repeated. ie the primary goal is that citizens go quick, and the others are second priority. But as you noticed, it starts getting messy as multiple plane arrivals overlap with each other, queues progress at random rates, and it isn't a particular effective system anyway. The booths work the same way as you described China's, but have additional complications (eg people using the app, and the receipt.) I had the misfortune of arriving on an international flight to SFO when they first got those booths. Some official decided to constantly shout and berate everyone trying to figure them out (he would keep contradicting the screens, or interrupt people trying to read them etc). Thankfully I haven't experienced that since. And it used to be a lot worse. Instead of a single long queue, there would be long separate queues for each desk. It became quite an art trying to deduce which lines would process quickly.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > The booths work the same way as you described China's, but have additional complications (eg people using the app, and the receipt.) But when you use the Chinese fingerprinting machine, you're not holding up the immigration line. This makes a big difference in queue times! SFO is wasting an incredible amount of passenger time by making everyone in line wait for everyone else to get fingerprinted.
  - rogerbinns 8y ago
    The last time I went through the lines at SFO there was roughly speaking a queue for the machines, and then after that lines for the booths & officers. If one person took 10 minutes on a machine, it wouldn't matter since the machine queue still flowed as did the booth queue. Have they reorganised it again?
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago

pebers 8y ago

Specific lanes for citizens of the country have existed for a very long time, but the article calls the issue out as having mostly arisen in the last three years. Seems unlikely that a thing that had already been there for decades has caused the (apparently) sudden decline.