Travellers from virus hot spots say screening lax at U.S. airports
Customs officers’ jobs to get harder as new restrictions introduced
WASHINGTON—As thousands of people flee from Europe and other centres of the coronavirus outbreak, many travellers are reporting no health screenings upon departure and few impediments at U.S. airports beyond a welcome home greeting.
Since January, officers from Customs and Border Protection have been on heightened alert for travellers who could potentially spread the virus. The Department of Homeland Security has told employees to look for visible physical symptoms and search through their travel documents and a federal database that tracks where they came from. Those customs officers will soon have to spot symptoms among a flood of more Americans funnelled to designated airports from multiple countries in Europe, an administration official said, after President Donald Trump announced new travel restrictions on the region this week.
But travellers, including some who say they showed visible signs of illness, say screening has been lax. Members of Congress this week grilled senior officials from Homeland Security over what some described as a porous screening process. And customs officers at airports question how accurately they can pinpoint people with symptoms and what safeguards are being taken to protect their health.
Even top officials at the department acknowledge the task of sealing the United States from the virus is impossible.
“This has never been from Day 1 intended to be a hermetically sealed process,” said Kenneth Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary. “We are trying to reduce and delay the biggest peak in the virus wave hitting on the United States of America. And all of these steps reduce and delay. They do not stop of the virus.”
“Viruses do not care about boundaries,” he said.
Maggie McDow, 46, said she had swollen glands when she landed at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, one of 11 airports where travellers who have recently been in China or Iran are being funnelled. McDow had flown from London, but before that, she had stopped in South Korea, a coronavirus hot spot.
McDow said she heard plenty of instructions from airport officials for those feeling ill in airports abroad. But when she reached the United States, she said, “There was none of that.” A customs officer stamped her passport, and she was on her way.
“No one asked where I had travelled. I guess they just assumed we all were just coming from London and so no big deal,” McDow wrote in an email because she was too sick to speak on the phone and has yet to be tested for the coronavirus. “I could have been coughing and feverish, and it seemed no one would have batted an eye.”
The Trump administration has barred entry to foreigners who in the past 14 days have visited China, Iran and, as of 11:59 p.m. Friday, 26 countries in the European Union. The administration has also told customs officers to use the federal travel database, documents and interviews with travellers to determine who to refer to a health screening at the airport. Officers are also required to refer those with symptoms coming from South Korea or Italy to be screened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to Stephanie Malin, a spokeswoman for Customs and Border Protection.
Malin said that as of March 4, more than 63,000 travellers at airports, seaports and the land border had been referred by a Customs and Border Protection officer for a health screening. Cuccinelli said last week at a Senate homeland security hearing that the screenings had been successful at slowing the outbreak.
“It bought us time,” Cuccinelli said.
The crush of Americans returning from Europe will make those screenings that much harder.