47 replies to this topic

[scubaski]

Arriving back onto USA soil in Atlanta from the SD.com Roatan trip, I saw at the US Immigation arrival hall the GLOBAL ENTRY signage lane and kiosks for those already enrolled. I being just a regular passport holder joined the cue line passing into the roped maze and waited about 10 minutes for the 3 or 4 couples to have thier interview with the immigation agent. I stepped up to the agent, handed over my passport and saw the Global Entry pampflet on the countertop. As I went to grab one, the immigation officer said "Please, Please enroll in the program. $100 for 5 years, saves you lots of time!" ( she said with a sigh ).My total face time with agent less than 1 minute. A ringging endorsement from a CBP agent. The GE kiosk nearest to me was being unused but had a agent nearby watching over the lane and also accepting regular passpot holders at her position for inspection. The wait for our luggage to come up from the tarmack was the most time consumming event and the cued line to hand over the Custom form to the final agent was plenty lenghty. Next was TSA that took awhile also. The whole event from walking off the airplane, Immigation counter, luggage pick up, Custom form hand off, TSA sceening was about 60 minutes for me this trip.

I'll enroll in Global Entry soon. My fingerprints / photo are already on file with the State of Massachusetts. The Global Entry pamplet says the willbe sharing infomation with other goverment agencys so this may put off some induviduials.
Ss

[Fordan]

Used it on my return from Europe to PHL yesterday. Not too bad, although the kiosk camera is aimed low for me to get my face in. Of course, there was almost no line for passports and I ended up waiting 45 minutes for my bags, but it worked.

[ScubaTex]

Came back from St Lucia yesterday, via Miami, and didn't notice any 'express lane' for GE individuals. However, there were an additional 7-8 lanes of 'Passport Control' upstairs for U.S. passport holders. All of the lanes were manned and had fingerprint readers, which one agent used to fingerprint someone who tried to come through with a Panamian passport. Other than the walk between 'check points' I estimate I spent 5 minutes at Passport Control, 5 minutes at baggage claim, 5 minutes trying to get through the bottle neck between baggage claim & Customs, and another 5 minutes while TSA completely unpacked & inspected my carry on camera bag w/ housing, strobes, arms, etc. Not bad, but I can see there's the potential for major delay due the confined areas of the international arrival facilities in Miami.

Bill