US may allow gay couples to use single customs form

[KansasCityGuys]

If this really happens; it is about time and good news! Also, once this goes into effect, if it does; I will be interested in; how gay travelers will be treated by customs and immigration officials. or if it will be another way to

 

http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/03/26/u-s-may-allow-gay-couples-to-use-single-customs-form/

[aaerobear]

very very good.:D

[Carnival_Brides]

This makes me soooo happy! We are doing a b2b in June and it'll be nice to go through with partner.

[Turtles06]

My partner/spouse and I have filled out one Customs declaration form for years when returning to the U.S. It says one per family, and we are a family. Screw DOMA. No one has ever asked us to fill out a second form. (If they did, it would sure tie up their line while I argued with them.)

[Bramcruiser]

I"ll believe it when I see it but it would be good news. The US is the only western country that my partner and I have to enter as two single men at the border control if we want to get through without problems. In the UK, we were surprised the first time we visited that since we were travelling together we should go through border control together. We had no problems as a couple with one entry in Iceland, Spain, Gibraltar, France and South Africa. And being Canadian we always return home as a couple with only one customs card.

 

I only hope the US moves forward on this issue.

[Schplinky]

It would be nice to see the US move forward with the rest of the western world on this. This is good news.

[keithm]

My partner/spouse and I have filled out one Customs declaration form for years when returning to the U.S. It says one per family, and we are a family. Screw DOMA. No one has ever asked us to fill out a second form. (If they did, it would sure tie up their line while I argued with them.)

Same as us. We're a family & had no issues with immigration. There still could always be that one officious jerk who wants to make a stink, though.

[bthom70]

I'm with Turtles on this, the last 4-5 cruises we've only filled out 1 form for our family of 2.

[GaNavy]

Niiiiiice!!!

 

It sounds from other posts like US Customs is already doing this, at least kind of doing it. And the proposed rule (read the Blade article) is a really elegant way around DOMA - who needs to talk about "marriage" when the form has always spoken to "family"? If only my agency (I work for the govt) could get on board with this....but our regulations unfortunately speak of marriage and spouses....so we're still hung by DOMA..... <sigh> :(

[Steven_&_Daniel]

We've also been using one customs form. However, I took my partner's last name many years ago. So it kind of makes us appear to be related anyway.

[Daghis]

We've also been using one customs form. However, I took my partner's last name many years ago. So it kind of makes us appear to be related anyway.

Same here. It makes things easy for the four of us (DH and me plus our two boys).

[Robb]

We have been doing this for some time now, no problems. An eyebrow or two raised, but no questions asked.

[eddiffin]

I was an an Atlantis cruise a couple of years ago, and the official made a couple in front of us fill out two separate forms. They protested that they were married in Canada, but he said two forms were required because of DOMA. So it does happen. At the time I hadn't legally married my partner, so we had done two separate forms. Since then we've never tried to do one. Now I know to do so in the future.

[Turtles06]

I was an an Atlantis cruise a couple of years ago, and the official made a couple in front of us fill out two separate forms.

 

I wonder if the official was hassling people because it was a gay charter...

[SgpMBL]

We've been doing one form for a few years now. There was only one time where we were asked to fill out a second form and when the customs agent realized that I wasn't going to move out of line as I filled it out, then he just accepted our one form.

 

After we got married, we combined our last name and legally changed it so our passports now has us having the same last name. We haven't had an issue since.

[kalypso333]

We actually had an agent tell us we only needed one form, since we lived at the same address. He then transferred my partner's name off his form to mine and threw my partner's away. :D

[cruisejames]

We actually had an agent tell us we only needed one form, since we lived at the same address. He then transferred my partner's name off his form to mine and threw my partner's away. :D

 

We had the same thing on our last visit to Miami, the customers guy asked who I was travelling with and I said my partner over there. He said well if you live at the same address your family as far as im concerned get your partner to come over here and you just need one form.

 

When we returned into the port of miami we filled out one form and we were made to fill out seperate ones again

[GriffinAlexander]

My partner and I, on our first cruise a few weeks ago, just did 2 forms and I wrote on top 'traveling w/ domestic partner'. The customs agent looked like she might be one of us (maybe she just likes short hair and uniforms), but we had pretty much split up the alcohol, souvenirs and the 2 conch shells we listed between the 2 forms and divided the approximate amount we spent. She waved us through after a glance at our luggage and our forms and seemed like a nice lady.

 

I've heard that they do randomly check people and that they will check people if they suspect that you didn't declare everything, or might be a smuggler or some kind of druggie or something. We didn't see anyone getting pulled off to the side, but we had been pointed around the wrong way and had to go under the rope where the male of the couple we ended up in front of took offense to us getting in front of him. I explained that we had gotten pointed around the wrong way, and then his wife dropped all of her luggage. He felt like a piece of sh*t when we helped her gather up her things, thanking us after yelling at us. We let them go in front of us anyway since the husband was adamant that they were supposed to be in front of us. No sense ruining the wonderful experience because of one jerk. Anyway, I'm sure he felt badly enough once his wife dropped all of her stuff and we were the ones who helped her.

[scubarandy]

We just came back from a caribbean cruise from Galveston, TX, used one form with no problems. We'd always filled out two just to avoid unnecessary hassle, I decided this time we'd try it with one and asked a customs agent just before getting to the "booth" and was told we'd only need one.