ESTA mandatory from Jan 20

[steph_goodrum]

They have said from the beginning youu should register at least 72 hours before your travel but arrangements would be made for urgent cases where immediate travel is regquired.
The trouble is you may know you have no reason to be refused ESTA approval but if your name and details register as a person of interest if someone has similar details it could hold up proceedings.

Airlines at present are fined for those who are refused entry which is why they do try as far as possible to comply but not sure why they should be forced to do extra work to polica another countries immigration policy? If you think of the numbe of countries involved and systems around the world it must be very hard to cross check everything.

[Sniff]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by steph_goodrum
They have said from the beginning youu should register at least 72 hours before your travel but arrangements would be made for urgent cases where immediate travel is regquired.
The trouble is you may know you have no reason to be refused ESTA approval but if your name and details register as a person of interest if someone has similar details it could hold up proceedings.

Airlines at present are fined for those who are refused entry which is why they do try as far as possible to comply but not sure why they should be forced to do extra work to polica another countries immigration policy? If you think of the numbe of countries involved and systems around the world it must be very hard to cross check everything.
[/quote]
The whole point of moving to ESTA is that these checks are done a relatively long time before travel actually happens, and not at check-in time as is currently the case with APIS. This allows the CBP to have a greater amount of time to analyse the data. I am assuming that if the details you supply for ESTA are similar to the details of a "person of interest" (or flag up in any other US law enforcement system for any reason) then you would not even get approval from ESTA in the first place. Then you would have to follow up with the CBP to find out why.

Of course this wouldn't stop the passenger ignoring that refusal and turning up at the airport for their flight anyway, but that's their problem, not the airline's problem. The point here is that the resposibility to provide such information to the CBP now is shifted to the individual traveller (via ESTA), whereas previosuly the responsibility lay with the airline (via APIS).

With ESTA the airlines now have to do less work than previously. With APIS they are forced to collect all the data at check-in time and pass this to the CBP. With ESTA they will simply supply the passenger's passport number to the CBP, and this will be used to look up in ESTA all the relevant info (which includes all the info currently in APIS). Now they will just cross-ref with ESTA and if it says 'Yes' they will let you board and if it says 'No' they will not let you board. If the passenger has not registered for ESTA, there is nothing the airline can do at check-in time.

In actual fact it would not surprise me if at some time in the future the airlines put in an ESTA check at purchase time rather than check-in time - in other words, you must provide a valid ESTA registration or they will not sell you a ticket for travel to the USA. That would force people to register, it would remove the requirement to validate ESTA at check-in, and it would provide the CBP with 100% information, way ahead of travel time.

However, it's actually not very difficult for the airlines to police such policies. The rules are well understood by the carriers and the providers, and have been coded into the airline and reservations systems for years. If anything ESTA will simplify this, as the data is now kept in ESTA and not the airline systems, and any changes required in the type of data collected will be done by the ESTA programmers, and not the airline programmers.

If you think that policing such immigration policies is difficult, you should try policing the various countries' tax laws, which airlines are also required to do every time they sell a ticket

[wrpac00]

Anyone got a link to where this says it is coming into force in Jan? Can't find anything on US embassy website about it.

[Sniff]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by wrpac00
Anyone got a link to where this says it is coming into force in Jan? Can't find anything on US embassy website about it.
[/quote]
A very good question...I can't find it either (although it makes a lot of sense).

Dawn posted it originally, and implied she was sent the info...by an airline or TA, perhaps?

[dawn]

It was sent in a letter from Homeland Security, dated 18th December so unfortunately don't have a link yet, but am sure there will be soon.