Black & White
5Feb2007
Arriving back from the US to Bermuda was quite a surprise this time around.
As many of you know, when you arrive at the immigration queue, you are directed into a Resident or Non-Resident line. This is to separate the tourists from the inhabitants. It always gave me a nice feeling to walk to the left and join the Resident’s line.
But now there is an additional filter once you are in the Resident’s line – Bermudian or Non-Bermudian. Left for Bermudian, right for the expats like me.
I could see that I was not the only one to be somewhat surprised by this new division. I literally stopped for a second to work out why there was the split.
As I waited, I thought about the reasoning. Is it to speed up the customs processing in general? Or is it to speed up the customs processing for Bermudians in particular? Or is it more sinister than that altogether?
As a friend commented, back in the 50’s and early 60’s those queues would have to separate the Blacks from the Whites. Is separating the Expats from the Bermudians any less divisive?
Did the Bermudian queue get processed faster than the expat queue?
Gavin – the Bermudian queue was slower, so I am not sure how long it will be before that idea is phased out…
Made things interesting when arriving with my non-Bermudian spouse – I just got in the expat line with her. I’ve been assured that there’s nothing sinister about this – it’s just an added step to save a bit of time and thought for immigration. But I agree that it’s not worth this rude welcoming back to the island just for the sake of saving a couple of minutes at the end of the day sorting between the Bermudian and non-Bermudian landing cards.