Customs and Border Protection Archives

Will TSA PreCheck and Global Entry be merged?

December 8, 2017

Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry kiosks speed up the arrivals process. (Image: CBP)

There’s already considerable overlap between membership in the Transportation Security Administration’s PreCheck program and Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry. So does it make sense to keep operating the programs separately?

That’s what the federal government is starting to wonder.

According to recent press reports, TSA chief David Pekoske said in an appearance before airport executives that he and CBP Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan are taking a “good hard look” at merging the two trusted traveler programs.

Pekoske said that the two agencies could make passenger processing much more efficient by combining their separate enrollment infrastructures, which currently represent ”a big duplication of efforts.”

Currently, members of CBP’s Global Entry program are afforded expedited security inspections for domestic trips as automatic participants in TSA PreCheck, but PreCheck members do not have reciprocal Global Entry privileges.

Together, the two programs have about 12 million current members. A combined trusted traveler program could also save money for participants: The five-year fee to join CBP’s Global Entry – which speeds up the arrivals process for international travelers – is $100, while PreCheck costs $85 for a five-year membership.

The TSA chief said that combining the two programs would also make sense in adopting new security-related biometric technologies like the facial recognition effort that CBP is testing for Global Entry.

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Airport updates: O’Hare, LAX, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Boston

September 25, 2017

American’s new Flagship Lounges have hot and cold self-service buffets. (Image: American)

In airport news, American Airlines opens a big new lounge at Chicago O’Hare; Los Angeles International travelers can now use an app to speed up re-entry after international trips; Pittsburgh International will get a massive makeover; Minneapolis-St. Paul gets faster TSA screening lanes; and facial-recognition boarding is a hit with JetBlue passengers at Boston.

At Chicago O’Hare, American Airlines has cut the ribbon on its second new Flagship Lounge; the first was opened at New York JFK some months ago. At ORD, the lounge is in Terminal 3, in the crosswalk between Gates H6 and K6. Hours are 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily. Targeted for AA’s international travelers at its primary gateway airports, the 17,000 square foot O’Hare Flagship Lounge is open to qualifying first and business class passengers, AAdvantage Executive Platinums, Platinums and Platinum Pros; AAdvantage ConciergeKey members; and Oneworld Emerald and Sapphire travelers. American said it expects to open additional Flagship Lounges before year’s end at Los Angeles International and Miami International, and in 2018 at Dallas/Ft. Worth, Philadelphia and London Heathrow. The O’Hare lounge can handle up to 300 passengers. It has showers, “quiet rooms,” a self-service wine bar, create-your-own cocktail service, hot and cold buffets and a chef to prepare customized offerings.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Mobile Passport Control app is now available for travelers going through Customs at Los Angeles International’s Tom Bradley International Terminal as well as Terminals 2, 4 and 7, airport officials announced. Available free at the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, the app lets passengers create a profile and submit passport information and answers to CBP inspection questions via their smartphone or tablet. The app will then send users a receipt and an encrypted bar code to show to CBP agents at the airport. LAX is a little slow in rolling out the CBP Mobile Passport Control app – 22 other airports have already done so.

Rendering of the spacious atrium planned for Pittsburgh’s new landside building. (Image: Pittsburgh International Airport)

Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County Airport Authority has unveiled a major redevelopment plan that calls for construction of a new landside building for Pittsburgh International’s Midfield Terminal and scaling back the terminal’s number of gates from 75 to 51. Besides new security, ticketing and baggage facilities in the $784 million landside building – which would be between the airside C and D concourses – the project also includes an overhauled international arrivals area, 3,000-space parking garage and other improvements. The X-shaped Midfield Terminal was built 25 years ago to serve as a hub facility for US Airways, but since the carrier downsized that operation and then was merged into American, the terminal now handles less than half the traffic that it once did. The terminal was built to accommodate up to 32 million passengers a year, but it currently handles only 8.3 million; the new facility’s capacity would be 18 million. The $1.1 billion plan calls for razing the existing landside building and the people-mover that carriers travelers from that building to the airside concourses. Construction is planned for 2019 to 2023.

Minneapolis-St. Paul is the latest airport to install those new automated security lanes that are said to speed up the TSA screening process by as much as 30 percent. (Although we’ve heard from many frequent travelers who would disagree with that assessment.) MSP now has four of the new lanes at the Terminal 1 south checkpoint, and will expand them to the north checkpoint next year. The lanes allow several travelers to load their belongings into bins simultaneously; the bins are larger than before, and if a bag raises the concerns of the TSA agent manning the x-ray machine, it can be shuttled off on a separate conveyor belt for further examination without slowing down everyone else. Empty bins are sent back to the starting point by a separate conveyor belt, freeing up TSA agents for inspection duties.

Here’s how JetBlue’s facial recognition system works. (Image: JetBlue)

Some months ago, we reported on JetBlue starting to test facial recognition technology for passenger boarding at its Boston Logan hub. Instead of having to show a boarding pass, passport or anything else to the gate agent, passengers simply stand in front of a camera and proceed on board. After four months, SITA — the technology company that provided the new system — said its biometric scanning proved to be quite accurate in the tests, with a success rate of almost 100 percent matching passengers’ facial images to those in government databases to verify identity. The company said a majority of JetBlue passengers on the airline’s Boston to Aruba flights used the camera option to board.

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Show U.S. Customs the contents of your phone…or else!

September 14, 2017

The ACLU is challenging CBP’s right to search travelers’ phones without a warrant. (Image: Customs & Border Protection)

Last spring, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security that challenged the authority of Customs and Border Protection officers to search returning travelers’ electronic devices without a warrant. Now the ACLU has taken that fight a big step further by filing a lawsuit against DHS.

“The number of electronic device searches at the border began increasing in 2016 and has grown even more under the Trump administration,” the ACLU noted. It said that CBP has conducted 15,000 electronic device searches in the first six months of fiscal 2017, compared with just 8,503 searches in the full fiscal year 2015. In 2016 there were more than 19,000 searches.

Other plaintiffs in the suit include the Electronic Frontier Foundation and 11 individuals who were subjected to warrantless phone or laptop searches when they came back into the U.S. Some of the plaintiffs had their devices confiscated by border agents and held for “weeks or months,” the ACLU said in announcing the lawsuit.

According to the ACLU, an engineer for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California “was detained at the Houston airport on the way home from vacation in Chile. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) officer demanded that he reveal the password for his phone. The officer returned the phone a half-hour later, saying that it had been searched using ‘algorithms.'”

Is there anything on your laptop you wouldn’t want the government to see? (Image: Hyatt)

The suit, called Alasaad vs. Duke, was filed in a federal court in Massachusetts. “It seeks to establish that the government must have a warrant based on probable cause to suspect a violation of immigration or customs laws before conducting such searches,” the ACLU said.

The organization noted that the individual plaintiffs come from all walks of life – a business owner, a military veteran, journalists, students, an engineer at NASA and so on.

“Several are Muslims or people of color,” ACLU noted. “All were reentering the country from business or personal travel when border officers searched their devices. They were not subsequently accused of any wrongdoing.”

ACLU said that in one case, an independent filmmaker who was returning from Canada resisted the CBP agent’s demand to turn over his phone. “Officers then physically restrained him, with one choking him and another holding his legs, and took his phone from his pocket,” the ACLU said.

The organization has set up a web page with details on each of the plaintiffs’ experiences.

Mr. and Mrs. Alasaad had their phones confiscated and held for two weeks. (Image: ACLU)

Sophia Cope, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that today’s travelers “store their whole lives, including extremely sensitive personal and business matters, on their phones, tablets, and laptops, and it’s reasonable for them to carry these with them when they travel. It’s high time that the courts require the government to stop treating the border as a place where they can end-run the Constitution,”

You can read the full ACLU legal filing here.

The ACLU has plenty of funding to support its legal action. Last January, after the Trump administration sought to ban U.S. entry to persons from several Muslim-majority countries, the organization took in $24 million in a single weekend from hundreds of thousands of donors. That was six times as much as it usually collects in a full year.

Readers: Has your device been searched by CBP? Do you think CBP officers should need reasonable cause to search it?

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How to get Global Entry faster

July 12, 2017

Plenty of kiosks, but few travelers at SFO’s Global Entry queue (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

Have you started the application process for Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry program, but had trouble scheduling the required personal interview? With longer lines for international travelers entering the U.S., CBP has launched a new program aimed at speeding up the enrollment process.

We’re constantly getting emails from readers who are shocked at the long CBP lines they encounter when flying into major airports like San Francisco International. The Global Entry trusted traveler program, which lets members use self-service kiosks and avoid inspection lines, is looking more attractive than ever as passenger numbers keep growing.

Customs and Border Protection actually has a website where you can track how long it’s been taking international arrivals to clear CBP inspections at major U.S. airports.

The travel industry had been expecting a “Trump slump” in international arrivals this year due to uncertainty about the new administration’s attitude toward foreign visitors, but so far it hasn’t happened – instead, international arrivals have been increasing. And low international air fares, especially to Europe, have sent more Americans packing for trips abroad as well.

So to facilitate Global Entry enrollments, CBP has just kicked off a program called Enrollment on Arrival. It’s in place now at San Francisco International, Houston Bush Intercontinental, Houston Hobby, Austin Bergstrom and Vancouver International, among others… see this for an updated list of airports participating.

Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry kiosks speed up the arrivals process. (Image: CBP)

How does it work? The program is designed for individuals who have been conditionally approved for Global Entry pending a personal interview at a Global Entry Enrollment Center. Instead of scheduling an interview, the traveler arriving at an Enrollment on Arrival airport can now finish the interview requirement during a CBP primary inspection.

“Upon arrival, travelers will be directed to a primary booth designated specifically for Enrollment on Arrival,” CBP said. “A CBP officer will conduct both the primary processing and Global Entry interview and collect the traveler’s biometrics to complete the enrollment. The traveler will then be cleared for entry into the United States and will be a Global Entry member.”

News: Trump wants facial scans of all Americans traveling overseas

The application fee for a five-year membership in Global Entry is $100, with applications submitted online. Applicants who pass the background check then must schedule an interview at any of 100 enrollment centers – or now via Enrollment on Arrival. You can find out more about Global Entry here. (Note that many high-end credit cards like American Express Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve reimburse cardholders for these $100 fees. See our credit card tab above!)

Global Entry kiosks are currently available at 53 U.S. airports and 15 Preclearance locations in other countries. The program, which has more than 4 million members, also includes TSA PreCheck privileges.

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More airport preclearance stations make it easier to fly home

November 9, 2016

Faster, easier re-entry to US via foreign pre-clearance facilities like this in Ireland (Dublin Airport)

Faster, easier re-entry to US via foreign pre-clearance facilities like this one in Dublin, Ireland (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

In 2015, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified 10 overseas airports for expansion of the US Customs and Immigration Preclearance program. And now the department has named 11 more.

For travelers, this means that you’ll clear US customs and immigration at foreign airports, and your international flight back to the US will arrive like a domestic flight- you just get off and go home. These stations usually include Global Entry kiosks for faster processing. For business travelers, the primary downside is that once you pass through, it might be impossible to wait for your flight in an airport or business/first class lounge.

“Preclearance allows DHS to screen individuals prior to boarding a flight, which means we are able to identify threats long before they arrive in the United States,” said DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson. “I look forward to the opportunity to grow our Preclearance operations in the Western Hemisphere, particularly into South America where CBP does not currently operate them.”

The airports newly named as Preclearance possibilities include Bogota, Buenos Aires, Edinburgh, Iceland’s Keflavik, Mexico City, Milan Malpensa, Osaka Kansai, Rio de Janeiro, Rome Fiumicino, Sao Paulo Guarulhos and St. Maarten.

Before a new a station can be opened, the U.S. and the host country must negotiate an agreement allowing it – and that can be a slow process.

You can add this to the long list of improvements travelers have seen under the Obama administration.

One of the next airpoirts to get Preclearance will be Stockholm's Arlanda. (Image: Swedavia)

One of the next airports to get Preclearance will be Stockholm’s Arlanda. (Image: Swedavia)

Of the 10 airports selected last year for possible Preclearance locations, DHS said the U.S. has just signed an agreement with Sweden for a Preclearance facility at Stockholm Arlanda, which isn’t expected to open before 2019. DHS said it “continues to engage with many of the host governments” from the other locations, and “expects to announce additional agreements in the coming months.”

Those other airports from the 2015 selection process include Brussels, Punta Cana (Dominican Republic), Tokyo Narita, Amsterdam Schiphol, Oslo, Madrid, Istanbul Ataturk, London Heathrow, and Manchester.

Most of the existing U.S. Preclearance stations are in Canada – at Calgary, Toronto, Edmonton, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Winnipeg. Other Preclearance facilities are at airports in Dublin, Shannon, Abu Dhabi, Aruba, Freeport and Nassau (Bahamas), and Bermuda.

Have you tried using Preclearance yet? How did that go for you? Please leave your comments below.

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Worst airports for customs/immigration lines

June 28, 2016

Customs lines are a lot longer at some airports than others, a study finds. (Image: Customs & Border Protection)

If you’re traveling abroad this summer, the time you’ll spend waiting in line to get through Customs & Border Protection (CBP) on your return could be torturous – or it could be pleasantly brief. It all depends on the airport you come back through.

And whether you belong to CBP’s Global Entry or not, of course.

A new study from MileCards.com warns that the longest CBP lines will be encountered during July and August, averaging 21 to 22 minutes. And the worst waiting times will be at California airports. The top 10 worst airports for CBP line times out of the 41 that have international arrivals facilities include five in the Golden State, the study found: Sacramento, Oakland, San Francisco, Fresno and Los Angeles.

Considering only the nation’s busiest airports, MileCards.com determined that the longest waiting times are at Miami, with an average of 27 minutes, but maximum line time that ranges up to 55 minutes. In second place was San Francisco International, with a 24-minute average and maximum line time of 48 minutes; New York JFK also posted average waits of 24 minutes.

By contrast, the shortest lines among the busiest international airports were at Phoenix, averaging 10 minutes; close behind Phoenix were Charlotte, Washington Dulles and Atlanta, all with average waiting times of 12 minutes or less.

MileCards.com noted that 13 of the busiest airports (including San Francisco and San Jose) now offer the free Mobile Passport Control app (www.MobilePassport.us) that can handle arrival formalities and gives users access to an expedited CBP lane as well as priority lanes for Customs declarations. Other advice from the company: Try to schedule a return flight that doesn’t arrive very early in the morning, as many flights from Asia and Latin America do. For returns from Europe, try to avoid mid-afternoon arrivals.

At San Francisco International, a spokesman confirmed to TravelSkills that the airport had the highest growth rate for international arrivals of any U.S. airport last year. He said that it is trying to reduce line times by installing more self-service Automated Passport Control kiosks (increasing their number last month from 40 to 64, with another 16 coming this fall), and that SFO is currently “pilot testing the first 24/7 Global Entry enrollment office in the U.S.,” as we reported a few weeks ago.

Plenty of kiosks, but few travelers at SFO’s Global Entry queue (Photo: Chris McGinnis)

The study suggests that travelers coming back from Europe should arrive through Atlanta or Washington Dulles instead of JFK or Newark, while Asia travelers should look to a Seattle return instead of California airports.

It also suggests enrolling in CBP’s Global Entry trusted traveler program ($100 for five years) over the Mobile Passport Control app, especially for travelers with connections from their re-entry gateway. (Why? Because in addition to speeding members through the Customs checkpoint via self-service kiosks, Global Entry also provides TSA PreCheck privileges.) MileCards.com notes that several credit cards will reimburse holders for the cost of Global Entry membership.

MileCards.com this week also issued a comparison of the Mobile Passport Control app vs. the Global Entry program, with details about how and where they work, along with a list of credit cards that cover the cost of Global Entry.

Are customs and immigrations crowds affecting you? Please leave your comments and experiences below.

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Airport briefs: LaGuardia, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Atlanta

June 18, 2016

LaGuardia’s new Central Terminal design. (Image: Global Gateway Alliance)

In airport news, work has finally started on the big reconstruction of New York LaGuardia; a bunch of new retail options are coming to Phoenix Sky Harbor; Customs starts testing facial recognition at Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson; and Minneapolis-St. Paul launches a five-year renovation project.

That huge reconstruction of New York LaGuardia finally got started this month, so travelers should expect to see some changes and some blocked-off areas there. The initial phase involves demolishing parts of the airport’s main terminal – but the work should cover only a few gates at a time, because the facility will remain open and operating all through the $4 billion project, officials said. Passengers should start to see new gate areas in the rebuilt terminal in about two years. The overall effort includes building a new central hall for the airport, and moving the new unified terminal 200 yards closer to the Grand Central Parkway, creating more space for airfield operations.

As of this week, it’s legal to grab a ride from Uber or Lyft at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport for a ride into town. Up until now, only drop offs were allowed. Also, Phoenix City Council this week approved a raft of new retail contracts for Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor International Airport, and travelers should start to see concessions opening in the weeks and months to come. You don’t see many shoe stores at airports, but one of the new PHX concessions is a Johnson & Murphy outlet. Other new retailers include a Brooks Brothers clothing store; Fire CZ and Uno de 50 jewelry stores; an Arizona Highways gift shop; an iStore that sells headphones, tablets and other tech items from Apple, Bose and Sony; a pair of XpresSpa locations; and a store that sells locally made art items. You can see a full list of new retail outlets here.

Customs and Border Protection has started testing new facial comparison technology at Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson International, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. From now through September, passengers on Delta’s daily Tokyo flight will serve as test subjects, having a digital photo taken when they show their boarding pass before boarding. It’s all part of a longer-term Homeland Security project mandated by Congress that requires the collection of biometric data to track the comings and goings of non-U.S. citizens. Data on travelers with U.S. passports will be deleted once their identity is confirmed, the newspaper said.

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Rendering of the renovated baggage area at MSP’s Terminal 1. (Image: Minneapolis Airports Commission)

At 54 years of age, Minneapolis-St. Paul International’s Terminal 1 – the Lindbergh Terminal – is due for a facelift, and the city’s airport commission has signed off on a five-year renovation project that will make the terminal’s ticketing and baggage claim areas more spacious, with more natural light, and more efficient operations. Work on the $200 million rehab has just started on the north end of the terminal, where the first phase involves installing new escalators and elevators. After 18 months of work on that side of the terminal, work will shift to the south side.

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Airport news: San Jose, Denver, Salt Lake City, Paris, Berlin

May 27, 2016

International arrivals at Mineta San Jose can use an app to get through Customs faster. (Image: Mineta San Jose Airport)

In airport news, two airports in the western U.S. are the latest to offer an expedited arrivals option for international passengers; Salt Lake City international changes course on the availability of smoking rooms; Paris CDG has a new place where weary travelers can lay their heads; and Berlin’s new Brandenburg International faces more delays.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Mobile Passport Control app is now available for international travelers re-entering the country through Mineta San Jose International and through Denver International. The free app, available through the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store, eliminates the need for filling out a paper customs declaration form and speeds up processing of incoming travelers. Persons who download the app simply need to create a personal profile with their passport data, fill in the “New Trip” section when they arrive in the U.S., submit their CBP declaration form via the app to get an electronic bar-coded receipt, and then show their passport and smartphone with the receipt to a CBP officer.

If you’re a smoker, you might not want to connect through Salt Lake City International in the future. The new city administration there has decided to get rid of all five smoking rooms at SLC by the year’s end. The effort will start with the Concourse D room, which will be gone July 5; the others will be removed over the next six months. This policy marks a change from the previous city administration, which had planned to continue offering smoking rooms as part of the massive terminal redevelopment coming to SLC over the next few years.

A typical guest “cabin” at Paris CDG’s new Yotel. (Image: Yotel)

At Paris Charles de Gaulle, a July 1 opening is scheduled for the airport’s first in-terminal lodging. That’s when a Yotel will make its debut in Terminal 2E, the home base for Air France and its SkyTeam partners. Yotel already operates airport locations at London Heathrow, London Gatwick and Amsterdam Schiphol. Yotel accommodations are in small “cabins” with luxury bedding, ensuite bathrooms with showers, and a “techno wall” with flat-screen TV, mood lighting and multiple power ports. The CDG airside facility will also have a communal Club Lounge with free hot beverages, work spaces ad a TV zone. The whole place provides super-fast Wi-Fi as well. Bookings are available at www.yotel.com.

Remember back in 2011 when Germany was planning to cut the ribbon on a big new international airport serving its capital city of Berlin? After five years of construction, that 2011 opening never happened. The airport, plagued with all kinds of structural, design and technological problems, was then rescheduled to open in 2012, then in early 2013, then in late 2013, and most recently in 2017. But now the city’s mayor has told local officials that at this point, it’s looking like 2018 is a more likely possibility. What happened to that legendary German efficiency? Volkswagen emission controls, anyone?

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Global Entry gets more global

October 24, 2015

Use your US Global Entry cred to avoid immigration backups in other countries (Photo: CBP)

Are you a member of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Global Entry program who enjoys the opportunity to breeze through Customs and Immigration formalities when you re-enter the country?? If so, you might want to take advantage of expedited entry to certain other nations, if you tend to travel to them frequently. The latest to offer this for U.S. citizens is the United Kingdom.

Customs and Border Protection has started to notify Global Entry members that the U.K. has a new expedited entry program called Registered Traveller, which provides “faster and more convenient entry to the U.K. for nationals from the United States.” With Registered Traveller membership — which costs 70 pounds (about $107) — you can use ePassport gates and U.K./European Union lines at U.K. airports as well as a dedicated lane at London Gatwick; and you won’t need to fill out a landing card upon arrival or undergo a credibility interview with Border Force officers.

Eligibility and other information can be found at www.gov.uk/registered-traveller.

According to the Customs and Border Protection website, other nations also offer expedited entry procedures for American travelers. Most require fees and registration or other restrictions, but worth a look:

US Customs has several arrangements with other countries (Image: US CBP)

“U.S. Citizens enrolled in Global Entry may use the Smartgate system when entering Australia without registration. [Visa still required.] U.S. Citizens may apply for the Dutch FLUX program, the Korean SES program, Panama’s Global Pass or the Mexican Viajero Confiable program for expedited entry into those countries. Additional fees and enrollment interviews will apply.”

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