ESTA mandatory from Jan 20

[dawn]

Following information received

"The US Embassy as well as CBP in the US have confirmed that ESTA will become 100% mandatory from 20th Jan 2010. Any pax without an ESTA will return a boarding pass inhibited print result on the AQQ checks and will therefore be denied carriage to the US"

[Katys Grandad]

If it's a step closer to not having the Visa Waiver from to fill in, then fine. Somehow I doubt it though.[msnsad]

[wrpac00]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by dawn
Following information received

"The US Embassy as well as CBP in the US have confirmed that ESTA will become 100% mandatory from 20th Jan 2010. Any pax without an ESTA will return a boarding pass inhibited print result on the AQQ checks and will therefore be denied carriage to the US"
[/quote]

I thought it had been mandatory for the past year (or however long its been in place).

[mfairhurst]

If you have a 6 months visa do you not have to fill this in ?
MAUREEN
www.onlinefloridavillas.com/villas/1683.aspx

[steph_goodrum]

No with a Visa you don't have to Maureen. Obviously this year there must have been some discretion, I havent known anyone who hasnt filled it in so dont know what has happened if they havent.

[mfairhurst]

We came in on the 10 DECEMBER and at Imagration I was asked to put my four middle fingers on for the screen and I did my right hand and ok then I put my left on and as my fingers are not straight and painful he said it was not showing up so can I sraightner them so my husband held them dowm for me and it was ok .
He said that if I could not get a finger print of my left hand I would not be allowed in they had got stricter rules now he ask why had we got a 6 months visa and we answered ( we had a villa ) that was the answer he was looking for .
It is the first time anything like this has happoened so things are changing
MAUREEN
www.onlinefloridavillas.com/villas/1683.aspx

[Dads_Taxi]

Hopefully, in this much improved world of indiscrimination, machines will be available that allow fingers to be wrapped around the scanner rather than lay flat on it. To refuse entry to a country on the grounds of a limb that is not fully functional is a massive case of discrimination.

Maureen, please don't take offence at my "not fully functional" comment, I hope you know what I mean, and take my point. Yours is obviously a relatively mild problem that could be overcome, albeit by causing you pain, which is in itself discriminating against you. Can you imagine the problems caused to a Cerebral Palsy sufferer attempting to use the finger print scanner.

I could rant about this all night! And it's not really the topic of this thread, sorry folks.

[Katys Grandad]

<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:Originally posted by steph_goodrum
Obviously this year there must have been some discretion, I havent known anyone who hasnt filled it in so dont know what has happened if they havent.
[/quote]

There must surely have been a lot of people who haven't completed ESTA but I haven't heard of anybody being refused entry for that reason alone either.

[DaveL]

At a meeting on Florida tourism about 4 months ago an INS official stated that only about 70% of visitors arriving in the U.S. since the Jan 'deadline' this year had completed the ESTA.

Now I suspect that this is the whole of the U.S. not just Florida. It therefore includes a lot of people who are arranging their own travel and maybe are not looking at or reading all the requirements as closely as they should.

There will probably be some well publicised 'refused entry' cases which will get the U.S. some bad press. When in truth they have at least given people plenty of warning this time.

Dave

[Sniff]

The difference here is not that ESTA is now mandatory...it has been mandatory since the beginning of this year (Jan 12th I think) even though the visa waiver forms have still been around. Like others here, I don't know of anyone who has been refused entry to the USA because they didn't register with ESTA. Maybe there have been such cases, but they obviously haven't got much publicity (but then neither has ESTA).

For me, the crucial point in Dawn's quote is this bit:<blockquote id="quote" class="ffs">quote:ESTA will return a boarding pass inhibited print result on the AQQ checks[/quote]This means that the CBP won't even need to deny you entry to the USA, as you won't even get there. The DCS system will simply return a "documents not in order" status from AQQ and you won't even get on the aircraft.

This is obviously how they have decided to address the requirement of the carrier to make sure passenger documents are in order prior to travel, even though the carrier has no access to ESTA. Any carrier receiving this response from ESTA/AQQ and still allowing the passenger to travel will likely have to repatriate the passenger at their cost and perhaps even be fined by the US.

Depending on how early you try and check in, and what access you have to the internet, in theory you could register for ESTA and get an immediate approval, thereby allowing you to check in OK. Personally I wouldn't want to leave it that late

It'll be interesting to see how the airlines respond to this, in terms of publicising the new requirement. At the very least I expect they will have prominent reminders to register for ESTA on their websites and ET email when you book travel to the USA.