U.S. Customs System Outage Irks Travelers
Monday’s ‘temporary outage’ leaves thousands of international travelers stranded.
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A nationwide Customs and Border Protection stranded thousands of travelers at airports on Monday.
Folks trying to enter the U.S. via a handful of cities were met with long lines and excessive delays as customs officers manually processed international passengers.
Issues were reported in , , , and Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Boston, Newark and San Francisco. All airports came back online Monday night, following what CBP called “a temporary outage” of its processing systems.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is experiencing a temporary outage with its processing systems at various airports of entry and taking immediate action to address the technology disruption,” the agency said in .
“CBP officers continue to process international travelers using alternative procedures until systems are back online,” it continued. “Travelers at some ports of entry are experiencing longer than usual wait times and CBP officers are working to process travelers as quickly as possible while maintaining the highest levels of security.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to PCMag‘s request for comment. According to a tweet, however, there is no indication the disruption was malicious.
According to social media accounts, conditions at Miami International Airport were particularly harsh: an army of angry, hungry people for three-plus hours as rising temperatures caused and .
please let US Customs know the Miami airport could use a little help. Thousands of us waiting in a “line”.
— Garret Prather (@garretp)
immigration @ M.I.A. Hundreds waiting, system has been down for hours
— Reza (@EGerami)
Nightmare at the airport for all incoming int’l flights: all systems were down at immigration. Hours of wait
— Sarah (@iLoveSassou)
Similar scenes were depicted at Washington Dulles International Airport, where Twitter user Richard Walker “36 unusable passport express kiosks, 20 unused global entry” stalls, eight agents and a one-hour wait.
A nationwide Customs and Border Protection stranded thousands of travelers at airports on Monday.
Folks trying to enter the U.S. via a handful of cities were met with long lines and excessive delays as customs officers manually processed international passengers.
Issues were reported in , , , and Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Boston, Newark and San Francisco. All airports came back online Monday night, following what CBP called “a temporary outage” of its processing systems.
