I recently tried getting the kids (5 and 8 years old) fingerprinted for their Global Entry membership, and have to say it was a frustrating exercise:

The first time we went to YUL, the CBP agent flat-out refused to do it, saying children were not eligible for Global Entry. I knew this to be false, but did not feel like arguing.

I went back two weeks later, hoping to meet a different agent, but no such luck: I had to deal with the same guy. This time I had brought along a printout from the CBP website and while the agent was initially not very cooperative, after a short conversation with one of his colleagues he completely changed his tone and agreed to try.

The 8-year-old was fingerprinted, but the quality of the prints was not good. The agent still refused to do the 5-year-old. The CBP agent said that both kids' Machine Readable Zone (MRZ) information was in the system, however, and that he had made a note about the prints. He told us that he had heard of lots of problems with printing children and that the system is "not set up for that".

Questions:

1) Will we be sent to automatic secondary if the 8-year-old's prints don't read properly? I certainly don't want this to happen and am not willing to experiment when we are trying to catch a flight.

2) Can the 5-year-old still use Global Entry even if there are no prints on file?

3) Based on various threads here on FT (including the NEXUS thread in the Aeroplan forum), it would seem that many people have had success in getting their children, even much younger than ours, fingerprinted. What is the secret?

Any comments and feedback are greatly appreciated!