TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin U.S.Customs

Just heard this evening there will soon be a U.S. Customs in SXM
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Including Immigrations and agriculture inspections ? Please add a link to this story -thank you.There are 15 or so pre-clearence points now in service, mostly in Canada -one on Aruba. Processing on Aruba can be up to 3 hours but not necessarily anywhere that long depending upon day and time. Weekends are longest due to timeshare departures, weekdays much better.Best is arrival in US on nonstop flight as you arrive domestically.

I was in Aruba 2 weeks ago, told by airline upon arrival to be at the airport 4 hours before departure which was a Saturday. From car dropoff, thru both Aruba and US security and customs less than an hour. No US forms to fill out anymore, all done on a touchscreen machine. Huge improvement from our last visit, hope SXM does it as well.

Other than one Facebook post I can't find this mentioned anywhere on the net! Would love it, but I wonder if it was wishful thinking after a good party??

Having a pre-clearance facility at SXM is on the wishlist. There have been some discussions, but nothing formal yet. I still think they are a few years away from having pre-clearance setup. It requires that US bound passengers be segregated from all other passengers and with the current setup of the terminal, I don't see how they can make this work.

I guess I'll be the lone dissenter. I vastly prefer doing GOES at JFK to any endpoint alternative. We waltz through Customs and Immigration in about five minutes. I can't imagine that SXM can improve on that.

I had seen talk of it on the 'wish list', as you say, maybe 6 months ago. They could do it, I suppose, if they put all US based pax downstairs in the B gates, but that would be a huge PITA for the passengers, not to mention that there are no places to eat down there, and no shopping. Sounds like the person who said that was mistaken to me.

I wondered what all would be said. this was straight from the consulates mouth here in SXM last night. He said it is very close and has been four years in the making not six months.

Silverfox, did you have to go through customs when you got back to the US?

Flights from Aruba pre-clear customs and immigration in Aruba and arrive in to the US as a domestic flight.

I didn't say that it had been six months in the making, just the last I heard of it was about six months ago. I'm not sure what the definition of 'very close' is, but I'm surprised that, if your information was directly from a government source, that you did not say that in your original post. Over all, I think it is good news for the island, and for US visitors, if and when it happens.

I agree with 4Driver4.

We go through Logan on our return and with Global Entry we almost run through Customs and Immigration.

I don't see how that could be improved on by pre-processing in SXM.

That was his exact words "very close" I didn't put it on here that the consulate said it because I wanted to see how many doubting Thomas' and know it alls would respond.When in doubt ask questions don't be so negative. But there is a lot of that on here.

You know, that is not really appropriate. We will end this one here.