Great news for people who hate to wait in long immigration lines when returning to the U.S.
Global Entry is, as of next week, being added to 13 additional U.S. airports, including (attention, Ngaire & Ken) Dallas.
Forgive me if this has been discussed previously on LCT (although I couldn't find it when I did a search a few minutes ago). Global Entry is one of several "Trusted Traveler" programs put into effect over the last year or so by the Dept. of Homeland Security. It allows people who have been pre-screened to skip the lines at regular immigration control and go to a kiosk to scan their passport and fingerprints. Pretty cool, no?? About five minutes vs. who knows how long in the regular line????
Here is a link to the press release:
Global Entry Expands How this works is that one must first set up an account on the GOES system (there's a link to that on the site noted above). GOES gives one an account number. Then, one chooses which Trusted Traveler program to apply for and fills out the application on-line. The application is processed and pre-vetted. If preliminarily approved, one receives a message to set up an interview and have fingerprints taken.
When we applied for our NEXUS cards (used for quick passage across the border into Canada), we received the preliminary approval letters in less than two weeks and had our interview a few weeks later. We were approved; and our cards should arrive this week. We don't have to do another application for Global Entry because the data on the application is exactly the same for both programs (personal data, addresses, employment, and travel for last 5 years).
We expected, and received, quite a bit of scrutiny at the interview regarding our travel to a bunch of middle-eastern countries last year on CAMEL. The funny part of the interview was when the Border Patrol guy (who was wearing his cap with sunglasses perched thereupon inside the office - great look for a beach, a bit silly for an office) asked us why we'd visited so many Muslim countries - Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Argentina. We wisely bit our tongues and did not point out to him that Argentina, being probably 99% Catholic, was not widely considered as a "Muslim country".
In any event, this Global Entry deal may be quite a nice thing for anyone who enters through any of the now 20 or so airports in the U.S. participating in the program.
The online application process takes a few minutes (15-30, including time to find birth certificates and passport numbers) but is not bad. I would suggest not using the "Application Wizard", as it screwed up a lot of data, which I then had to correct manually, taking longer than if I had simply gone page to page in the first place when doing the application.
Mama Sup & Ken - This may save you lots of time clearing immigration when returning from your many trips (assuming, of course, that Ngaire is not rejected from the program because of her highly suspicious propensity to eat prodigious quantities of lamb chops - after all, an interviewer who doesn't know that Argentina is not a Muslim country might think that Kiwis are not "Trusted Travelers" just because they have odd names that begin with two consonants that are not usually pronounced together).
Have a look at the program if it might be available at your favorite airport.
Cheers, Fred
PS - Look, LCT friends, I managed a whole (and dreadfully long) post with almost no feeble attempts at half-baked humor. I guess that I won't have to add any "joke" emoticons (which I can never figure out how to add anyway, being such a total goof at anything complicated).
