In case anyone is planning to travel overseas and pass through New York’s JFK airport: ever since the pandemic, the entry back into the USA, with the passport control and the customs forms, has been very, very easy.
It used to be that the officers might want to bark at you a bit as you show them your passport. No, don’t place it there! DON’T put your hand there! That’s wrong, where’s the other paper?
And, they always used to ask me some questions: so where did you go? What were you doing there? It would take like a minute or two.
But ever since 2021, I have flown back to the USA twice through JFK airport. The entire interrogation has been nixed, it seems. On both times, I just showed them my passport, they nodded, and that was it. No questions, no nothing. I don’t even know if they flipped through to try to find the foreign country stamp. They did still take your picture and what-not, but that was it.
And the last time I flew through there, they didn’t even have us fill out a customs form. They never passed one out, they never asked to see it, they never asked us to drop off the filled-out form.
I think early on they made all these simplifications so that people aren’t standing in the arrivals hall for long and getting covid exposure. But they seem to have continued the new practice even on my most recent return.
Of course, I don’t know if this has now become permanent practice, but maybe you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the ease of everything on your next return through JFK.
I do know someone who recently entered the USA through Chicago’s O’Hare airport. They did ask for customs forms there. So each airport is now doing its own thing, LOL.
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