U.S. Customs and Border Protection - Terminal 4 — Attraction in New York

One star is not even deserved. Horrendous experience entering the US through customs at JFK Terminal 8 on June 3rd 2024. I am not usually one to leave negative feedback, however I am still angered by this experience over a year later. I was 5 months pregnant at the time, travelling on my own and suffering with major back pain and pelvic dysfunction, exacerbated by an 8 hour flight from the Uk to visit my husband. The customs hall was absolutely heaving with people and I joined the largest queue I have ever seen - starting from outside the hall. I noticed a CBP officer walking past and tried to discreetly ask her for help as I simply could not stand in a two to three hour queue pregnant, carrying bags, with no access to a bathroom. She was very reluctant to even speak to me and had an extremely poor and dismissive attitude. She would not even come over despite it being glaringly obvious that I was trying to communicate with her discreetly. I had to shout across a huge group of people that I was pregnant, in pain, needed the bathroom and needed help to get to the front of the queue or to sit down at the very least. At this point everyone was staring at me and I was incredibly uncomfortable. She looked me up and down, extremely dismissively and said "we don't got no line for that" as she turned around to walk away. I advised her that I had travelled to the US through JKF a month earlier and was able to be seen straight away as I was pregnant and she said "not here you didn't" and walked off. She was mistaken. I was taken through immediately on my prior visit. I spent the next two hours in tears due to back pain, hip pain and discomfort and was unable to use the bathroom, which for anyone who is pregnant is essentially torture. Within a few weeks of this incident my pelvic dysfunction worsened to the point of me requiring a wheelchair during my entire third trimester and up to three months postpartum. This airport needs to take a very strong look at their policy regarding pregnant women, particularly those who are travelling alone. Absolutely disgusting. Additionally, giving absolute hoodlums any form of 'authority' to exert over others -...

I had a terrible experience here. One officer especially was extremely rude and abusive towards me. I actually filed a complaint against him and would encourage others who have an issue to do the same. I don’t know if there is a way to also file a complaint with an external agency because I am not sure the complaint I filed will with the CBP will be appropriately and adequately dealt with. Judging from the other comments, it seems like this negative culture is endemic at least to this branch of the organization. Anyway, what happened here were several things. An officer accused me of being an anarchist and told me to admit it or else they would find out and he also made sarcastic comments about what I was doing in life when I told him i was searching for a job. He obviously thought that was not legitimate thing to be doing in life. After this, he selected me to be detained and I was held for four hours. I was polite and cooperative the whole time yet his attitude was downright abusive towards me. He treated me like i was a bad guy right from the get go and I honestly felt like he had violated my human rights. Other officers were not as bad, the supervisors and superior officers seemed somewhat more competent, but it seems like guys like this are given free reign there and most of the officers in general seemed kind of dopey or incompetent. They were people who seemed to me like they could easily be a mediocre or slightly underperforming employee at Burger King. Some of the female officers it seemed tried to mitigate the abusive and disrespectful behavior of the other officers to some degree, but this was definitely an afterthought and more like damage control. I expected the police in the US and especially in New York to be at a very high level, but this was not the case and I don’t know where they recruit these clowns from or why they are allowed to have authority and power over people and represent our country. I also saw a lot of other people, mostly foreigners, being treated with disrespect. Its really a shame for America that we have this kind of treatment at our airports. Not a great first impression or way to form your...

Just landed at JFK from the UK (vacation - we're lifelong US Citizens) and would have missed our connection were it not for a weather delay. The "line judge" for ICE/CBP was Indian...could barely speak English. He had absolutely no common sense or judgement, refusing to assist customers in moving forward in line when they had absolutely no chance to make their flight otherwise. He was VERY FRUSTRATING! Actually moved people into a new line who had just walked up and had a 4 hour layover, yet refused to allow another gentleman to change lines when he only had 18 minutes before his flight left! Not a good example of what we want in our Homeland Security...unbelievable.

The computer systems were ordered to be rebooted 3 TIMES while we were in line. Oh yeah, my wife and daughter made it through their lines, but I had the dreaded "X", so my line took 79 minutes - and we only had 91 minutes between flights! Why the "X" for one member of a family of three? Why not make arrangements for those with quick turnarounds, at no fault of their own? These people are ridiculous and are certainly not paid to think...just do. Rules are rules and I am always right! Very unprofessional.

All this while no less than 30 agents (or at least uniformed employees of the government) just stood around chatting, several with cute girls - most with each other. We had no issues in 2 other countries on our trip. I'm saddened to say these other countries and their immigration agencies made the U.S. look third world.

I'm well aware of the need for security, but let's make it worth something rather than just go through silly motions to make it look like it already...