Didn't they say it's about $2bil per day? Shutting down the border will certainly affect the economies in trump states like TX and AZ.

No one in No one out!!

We spent ten days in Spain and France.

IT TOOK OVER TWO HOURS TO CLEAR CUSTOMS!

The US is a third world country.

I have to fly into IAD in less than two weeks. Fortunately I don't have any onward connecting flights the day I arrive. It's bad enough that there are no nonstop flights from here to IAD.

The absurdity of border control was in full view at the customs entry point. It was 9:00 pm on a Saturday night and there were an estimated 5,000 people standing on line waiting to go through the process.

After waiting an hour and a half being queued like cattle, we were supposed to use the passport reader/photographic entry machine. The only problem was that some of the machines were offline and some weren't working properly.

Next, we waited 25 minutes in another queue to have a customs officer stamp our passports and accept the receipt from the entry machine.

Oh, and they never asked us for our declaration documents. Further, the agents were surly and full of attitude since they had control over all of us U.S. citizens.

In particular, I felt for the parents who had their kids to manage after the 6+ hour flights.

In contrast, when we landed in Barcelona, we cleared customs in under 5 minutes. When we drove between Spain and France, there was no "border control" and it was like driving between states in the U.S. A side point: the highways were excellent and everything was well marked unlike in New York.

I hope your experience in D.C. will be better than ours!

To be clear, our travails were entirely the responsibility of the U.S. Customs and Homeland Security. The airlines and the airports had nothing to do with it.

When I land in the USA from here, it's usually at Boston, JFK (rarely), Washington-Dulles (a lot) or Atlanta. Almost never Dallas, since I never take American or Lufthansa, and they are the only ones with convenient nonstop flights from the Continent. British also flies to Dallas, but I hate changing planes at Heathrow, which is the closest airport I know to resembling a Tokyo subway station at rush hour.

CBP at both Boston and Atlanta said if I wanted to avoid the masses, get a flight that arrives before 2 PM, because after that, the numbers arriving overwhelm the systems set up to handle them. The airports and airlines love increased capacity, but CBP doesn't get a budget increase for more personnel, machines, or space to handle the increased wad of humanity heading their way. They hate it, and since they can't take it out on their employer, the airports or the airlines, they take it out on us. I can imagine a Saturday night being just about the WORST time to arrive at a US border entry airport anywhere.

I fly down to Barcelona a lot, but it's always from within the EU, so I never see customs or border police anyway. I used to live there once upon a time, still speak Catalan well enough to pass for a native for a short while at least, and am pretty much at home there. I will never lose my love for that city.

Traveling into and out of France is hit or miss. Sometimes they heed the EU and Schengen laws that mandate free movement of people, capital and goods within the treaty countries. But sometimes, they set up--completely contrary to EU law--customs checks in order to confiscate money or goods if they feel so inclined. They rarely bother anyone they perceive to be a tourist from the USA, but they consider EU citizens to be prime grade A confiscation material if they are in the mood. France has always gone its own way, and that isn't about to change.

Keeping us inside it.