Originally Posted by
dc_to_yunnan
I don't believe this is correct.
My wife got conditionally approved within a week, so after waiting 100 days for mine, I went to the Global Entry center on Pennsylvania Ave in DC to see what was happening. The officer there told me an initial scan is done to determine whether you could be someone with a criminal record. People who share some combinations of characteristics as a "bad guy" (name, DOB, whatever) are put on the slow track while CPB makes sure they are a good guy. This makes sense in my wife's case because no one else in the world has her name and she was approved quickly, whereas my name is fairly common and I'm still waiting.
Now there could be a random element to this as well. In fact, if I were running the program I would randomly put people I thought were clean on the slow track to make sure my initial screening process was working. But I don't think it is only about randomness.
Anyway, I'm still waiting at day 125.
Son is a mechanic/engineer for an airline. He has access to every part of an airplane. If you can't trust him, who can you trust???? He applied first week of July. Still waiting. There is no rhyme or reason for this nonsense. IF there is an "initial scan", surely, he would be put on a fast track vs the slow track. My 2 cents.