A Change in Customs and Immigration

I just landed in Los Angeles after flying from Tokyo's Hanada airport. I was here just 2 months ago and was surprised that I didn't have to fill out the usual customs and immigration form. They told us on the plane that it was not necessary for those of us traveling with a US passport. Then the passenger sitting next to me told me that his wife flew through LAX a few days earlier and it was a breeze to get through the usual welcome-back-to-the-USA process.

We were landed 15 minutes early and that gave me an even 2 hours to clear customs, change terminals, go through security again, and walk to the furthest gate from the door. Two hours is plenty of time and so I wasn't sweating the layover, but I was interested in how the kiosk would streamline things. Guess what? It actually made things longer.

The old process would have you fill out a form on the plane. With a 10-hour flight, taking 5 minutes to fill out a form was not an arduous task. Now you go to a kiosk and answer a few questions on a touch-screen terminal. They also take your picture. Because they scan your passport, there is less of a chance for errors. When you are done, the kiosk prints out a form that looks somewhat similar to the one you used to fill out on the plane. The rest of the process is exactly the same as it was before. The net is that have one additional stop on your trip through customs and immigration.

I am trying to decide if this computer kiosk makes my life easier or not. On the one hand, the Federal Government now has a more efficient method of entering this information into their massive database. On the other, I have to make an extra stop before I am considered on American soil. If the extra stop means we can hire more customs and immigrations officers so I never have to wait very long, then I am all for the new technology. However I don't think it will work that way.