US customs form handed out but asked NOT to fill it out

Upvote:1

This matches my experience when entering the US a few days ago at Minneapolis. The immigration official handed me the usual customs form, however, in Spanish. I went to the customs official to ask for an English copy, but was informed that I wasn't expected to fill it out, but just to hand it to him. This seemed to be how it was done in general: People were handed a customs form by immigration, which they then returned pristine to the customs people.

Upvote:3

This form is probably CBP form 6059–B, which looks like this. From the various "CFR" numbers at the top of the form, we can see that it is required by 19 CFR 148.13, but there is an exception for people who are authorized to make an "oral declaration" under 148.12. Broadly speaking, this exception is based on the total value of merchandise that you are bringing into the US.

The practical matter is, unless you're importing a lot of valuable stuff, most people probably do qualify for the oral exception, and will be allowed to enter their identifying information at an electronic kiosk ("Automated Passport Control"), check a box indicating that they are not importing a lot of valuable stuff, and enter the US without having to itemize their imports at all. If the traveler indicates that they do not qualify for the exception, then the kiosk will prompt them to itemize, and the paper form is still not needed.

You might think this makes the form useless, and it almost is. But there's a problem: Not everybody is allowed to use the APC kiosks. CBP's website indicates that "U.S. citizens, U.S. legal permanent residents, Canadian citizens, eligible Visa Waiver Program participants, and travelers entering with B1/B2, C1/D, or D visa can utilize APC kiosks." If you're on any other kind of visa, and you don't qualify for the oral exception (i.e. you say "yes" to "anything to declare?" and followup questions indicate that you're over the limit), then you have to fill out the paper form (CBP officers also have discretion to require the form anyway, but they rarely bother). The vast majority of passengers will not fall into this category, and so they don't need to fill out the form.

Based on all of this, I would surmise that CBP is trying to conserve paper and ink, and has asked the airline to tell passengers not to bother filling out the form. The small minority of passengers who do need to fill out the form will likely do it in front of the CBP officer, which won't hold up the line too much as it's a short form and most people won't be filling it out at all.

Of course, it would make more sense for CBP to simply hand out the forms at the checkpoint, instead of making the airline do it, but historically (before the advent of APC), such forms were typical at least at larger airports, and at that time it would've made sense to ask passengers to fill them out in the air. Government agencies, especially in the US, tend to be a bit slow to react to change, so I don't find it terribly surprising that they're still doing things "the old way," especially considering that this particular form has traditionally been handed out by flight attendants rather than government employees (i.e. they would have to coordinate with the airline to withdraw the form).

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