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Customs System Outage Causes Long Lines At LAX, Nationwide

WASHINGTON (CBSLA.com/AP) — A temporary system outage for U.S. Customs and Border Protection caused long lines and delays at airports across the nation Monday evening, including at Los Angeles International Airport.

During the outage, CBP officers processed international travelers using "alternative procedures." Just before 8:30 p.m. Pacific time, CBP announced that the system had come back online.

Throughout the evening LAX advised fliers to arrive early in order to avoid delays. The computer outage affected the processing of people coming into the country on international flights, LAX spokesman Frederick Badlissi told City News Service.

Steve Pedrotti told KCAL9 he had been waiting for nearly three hours for his girlfriend to get through customs after her flight from Thailand arrived at LAX. He was planning to propose to her once she finally got through.

"As long as she's OK, it's worth the wait, but it's been a long time, just trying to be patient here," Pedrotti said.

Officers still had access to national security databases and all travelers were screened according to security standards during the outage, CBP said.

CBP did not give a cause for the disruption, but said it did not seem to be malicious.

(TM and © Copyright 2017 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2016 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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