I was connecting from Grand Cayman to London via Miami after visiting one of my six grandchildren. I had gone through immigration, but suddenly an announcement came over the Tannoy asking for me. When I contacted an official I was marched away and shoved into a room with two others – no explanation, nothing. It was absolutely awful and very frightening. I asked why I was there, but they wouldn’t say. I was having visions of Guantanamo Bay.

After an hour and a half I was told I could go. I was furious and demanded an explanation and was told: “We don’t want undesirables in our country. Next time I advise you use hand cream, as your fingerprints have come up as those of a known terrorist.”

I’ll never, ever fly through Miami again. – Jenny Bloomer, Crowborough

After a long, sleepless flight from London to Los Angeles, I sprinted to the immigration hall in the hope of beating the queues. Fat chance. The hall was already three plane-loads of people deep: hundreds of tired travellers snaked in huge, angry, haphazard queues, with just four immigration officers processing our passports.

Over the next three and a half hours, duty staff – disorganised and overwhelmed – kept rearranging the lines in the hope that we wouldn’t notice that we were not moving. Occasionally someone would start crying in exhaustion. Old people collapsed, children lay down on the floor and wept, adults started shouting.

But what made me luminous with rage was the fact that I spent three and a half hours inching past a big sign declaring: We pledge to do all in our power to get you through Immigration as quickly as possible. – Polly Smith, Liverpool

I entered the US through New York’s JFK airport. Considering you’re not supposed to joke with the staff, I thought it was a bit one-sided that the immigration official made fun of my name – “Arrowsmith, ha ha, like Aerosmith” – but clearly I wasn’t supposed to join in. Less funny was arriving in Las Vegas to discover the penknife that I thought I had checked in had been in my hand baggage all along. And this was post 9/11. – Matt Arrowsmith, Twickenham

We visited New York on our final adults-only holiday before the birth of our daughter. My partner Cathy was pretty heavily pregnant. We disappeared into parallel lines at JFK. She came out the other side swiftly – I didn’t. With no explanation (to me or to her, despite me saying that my pregnant partner was outside and undoubtedly worried), I was kept for 20 minutes.

Apparently my name resembled that of someone on the most-wanted list. Not a great start to the holiday. – Andrew Edwards, Leeds

On several occasions I had real trouble going into Washington’s Dulles airport, always queueing for at least two hours, sometimes more, and quizzed in detail about why I was going (to visit my American boyfriend), where we met etc. When I said Vietnam, that didn’t exactly help. – Hannah Strange, London

I arrived at Miami and stood in line for an hour. When I reached the desk, an incredibly officious immigration clerk told me I had put some information one line above where it should be. He wouldn’t let me correct it there, which would have taken five seconds, or get a new form and come back to him. He said that I had to line up all over again, which took another hour. I was beyond livid. – Jane Nairn, Perth

Let us know your US immigration nightmares – or do you have more pleasant stories to share? Are you a US citizen who has had trouble entering the UK? Contact us at yoursay@thetimes.co.uk.

How to beat the immigration blues

Avoid landing in the afternoon when most flights from Europe are arriving. Fewer aircraft land in the evening – Virgin has a flight into Newark at 11.10pm, American Airlines has one to JFK at 10.50pm while BA has arrivals at Boston at 9.55pm and Washington Dulles at 10.40pm. Air New Zealand’s daily service from Heathrow reaches LA at 7.45pm. If the thought of getting into town late is scary, prebook a transfer, for example through www.supershuttle.com. Alternatively, for early birds, American Airlines reaches Chicago from Heathrow every day at 10.20am and BA arrives at JFK at 11.20am.

Don’t dawdle – you need to get to the head of the immigration queue fast. First and business-class passengers have priority disembarkation, but in economy try to reserve a seat as far forward as possible to get off before most of your fellow flyers. Website www.seatguru.com has seat maps, and most airlines let you choose a seat when you book.

Fly in to an airport with fewer international arrivals – for example BA flies to Tampa, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle and Baltimore. US Airways flies to Charlotte, North Carolina, Delta flies to Cincinnati, Ohio, and Continental has flights to Cleveland (Ohio). Northwest arrives at Detroit and Minneapolis and American Airlines has a daily Gatwick-Raleigh (North Carolina) flight.

If connecting through Frankfurt, Lufthansa has a useful Portland (Oregon) service, while KLM/Northwest (via Amsterdam) flies to Memphis (Tennessee).

Fill out the green visa-waiver form correctly. Sounds easy, but the boxes and lines are close together and confusing. Take two in case you bodge one.

Smile – you’re jetlagged and dehydrated, but if you sat in a booth for hours processing forms, you’d be grumpy, too.

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