LAHIKER

I would expect you to hear from them in 1-2 weeks.....

WanderingGent

Applied 26 June 19
CA granted 05 Nov 19

Total time spent in limbo: 133 days

BigVer509

Has anyone gotten CA in the 1 - 4 month time frame? It seems it takes a week or 5 months. There must be two different tracks for approval - the fast track and the slow boat to China. I don't buy the "depends on the desk it goes to" explanation. The discrepancies are too big.

wangjindc

My wife applied 6/28/19 and got CA today 11/5/19, 131 days. However I applied earlier on 6/2/19 and it's been 157 days and still pending CA. The system is certainly not first come first serve. I've traveled 4 business trips out of US since I applied and my wife only had one trip outside US, so the system certainly is not based on the user travel frequency. Guess nothing I can do but keep waiting.

mnbp

Based on FT posts, my and many other's conclusion is: it is simply random chance. About 2/3 of applications are put into the fast track category, and about 1/3 of applications are in the slow track. It is what it is - there appears to be no logic or pattern to discern. Just be patient.

nitetime

applied 6/1
CA on 11/6
[159 days]

adudeinthesky

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.

stan1162

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.

mnbp

I went back to find the source for the fractions I provided. Please see the following FT post (which quotes a Washington Post article with an official CBP spokesman's statement).

Global Entry Renewal

This is post number 1514 in the referenced thread - in case the automatic link does not work on your web browser.

hitch123

Applied 1 June 19
CA granted 07 Nov 19

dr benway

yes, those are probably the numbers, but it seems it is not random.

it is my understanding;

some applications trigger "flags" -- for any number of different reasons

a "flag" results in further "manual" inspection, name check, background check etc and hence months delay.

those approved in a few days, raised no flags, so effectively "automatic" approval.

fwiw, used to be for the LPR/green card process, it was the FBI that carried out the "name check"

hope that helps

adudeinthesky

I was not questioning the fractions. I was questioning that it is random as to whether you are processed quickly or slowly. Sorry if that was not clear.

adudeinthesky

There are many in the same boat as your son, with heavy duty security clearances, etc., who have to wait. If you are saying you can improve on how the initial scan is done, I agree with you. As someone who has worked in DC for 15 years, the bureaucratic inefficiencies are not surprising to me anymore.

If you start poking around the CBP website, you will see that many of the links that used to inform the public are now broken. That these simple things have been allowed to remain broken gives you an idea of how problematic that agency is right now.

mnbp

Since roughly 2/3 of applications are processed in the "quick" 7-14 day track, my conclusion is that this is simply random. Numerous posts in numerous GE-related threads here on FT have never identified a common factor for "fast" vs "slow".

My conclusion: Very simply, it is random.

sfscrapper2004

Applied June 1
CA granted Nov 8