California

Customs System ‘Disruption' Halts Major Airports

The outage lasted an estimated two hours

The United States Customs and Border Protection system temporarily experienced an outage after a “technology disruption” Monday at major airports across the country, according to the agency.

On the first day of the new year, long lines of passengers entering the United States halted at international airports in New York, Florida, Texas and California. 

The outage lasted an estimated two hours, according to CBP statement released Monday:

"U.S. Customs and Border Protection experienced a temporary outage with its processing systems at various airports today beginning at 7:30 pm and ending approximately 9:30 pm. All airports are currently back online.

CBP took immediate action to address the technology disruption. CBP officers continued to process international travelers using alternative procedures at affected airports. Travelers at some ports of entry experienced longer than usual wait times as CBP officers processed travelers as quickly as possible while maintaining the highest levels of security.

During the technology disruption, CBP had access to national security-related databases and all travelers were screened according to security standards. At this time, there is no indication the service disruption was malicious in nature.”

CBP has not given an explanation of what caused the disruption in the system but did say it was not "malicious in nature."

Airports have reported the CBP system was working again and arriving passengers may expect delays. 

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