# Airport Immigration



## gailrsa (Feb 27, 2012)

We're Americans who have been living in Jo'burg for 16 years. We have permanent residency. My son flew to the US on his American passport in December for a college interview. When he returned to SA, the OR Tambo immigration officers were obviously on a 'go slow.' Passengers stood for an hour in the queue with no movement. So dozens of them, including my son, walked through without being processed, and no one stopped them. We're about to leave for the US again on March 1st, and I'm worried he'll run into problems with immigration trying to leave. Has anyone experienced this before, or does anyone know how this will play out?


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## Native Texan (Apr 29, 2011)

gailrsa said:


> We're Americans who have been living in Jo'burg for 16 years. We have permanent residency. My son flew to the US on his American passport in December for a college interview. When he returned to SA, the OR Tambo immigration officers were obviously on a 'go slow.' Passengers stood for an hour in the queue with no movement. So dozens of them, including my son, walked through without being processed, and no one stopped them. We're about to leave for the US again on March 1st, and I'm worried he'll run into problems with immigration trying to leave. Has anyone experienced this before, or does anyone know how this will play out?


Wow, I don't know anyone who has been able to enter at an international airport without passing through immigration like that. I have overstayed my visa by months before in another country and only had to pay a fine based on the time that I had overstayed and they then let me go on with no problem. Please post and let us know what happened when he left. Sorry about the late post but I missed your post somehow.


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## gailrsa (Feb 27, 2012)

Native Texan said:


> Wow, I don't know anyone who has been able to enter at an international airport without passing through immigration like that. I have overstayed my visa by months before in another country and only had to pay a fine based on the time that I had overstayed and they then let me go on with no problem. Please post and let us know what happened when he left. Sorry about the late post but I missed your post somehow.


My son is now in the US. Expecting the worst, my husband and I waited in the airport for him to clear security and immigration, phones in hand, expecting a distress call from him. When he called it was to say he was through and there had been no mention at all of his prior entry. This tells me that South African immigration has no clue who is in or out of the country! That was good news for him, but a sad reflection on the accuracy and reliability of their border controls.


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## Johanna (Apr 13, 2009)

I have never heard of this happening before, I pass through customs quite regularly and have always had to wait my turn.
Sometimes you are lucky and helped quickly at other times you wait for a while, but personally have never been there when the staff were on strike.


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## gailrsa (Feb 27, 2012)

Johanna said:


> I have never heard of this happening before, I pass through customs quite regularly and have always had to wait my turn.
> Sometimes you are lucky and helped quickly at other times you wait for a while, but personally have never been there when the staff were on strike.


We later learned they were not on strike... but rather all former police officers who had been newly trained as Immigration Officers by Cuban trainers. They were deployed for the first time on the day my son came through, and obviously were not yet ready to face lines of passengers.


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