US customs processing outage delays international travelers

Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility, in Brownsville, Texas, in this file photo. (REUTERS)

WASHINGTON: An outage of the US Customs and Border Protection’s processing system briefly led to delays Monday night for international travelers arriving in the US
A spokeswoman for the agency says a two-hour delay starting around 7:30 p.m. EST forced Customs and Border Protection officers to process arriving passengers using backup procedures at some airports.
Agency spokeswoman Jennifer Gabris says the disruption in processing did not affect the standards for security screening and is not believed to be malicious in nature.