Had a scheduled LAX interview today and someone tried to walk up - CBP officer said "NO" - said if they have gaps in the schedule they will do it but it was solid full for the day

Side note: Arrived 1 hr 15 min early and they took us right away

SFO
Yes [100m] (04/13/2017 2:50 PM)

When you get there ask the others sitting around about what is going on. Many are helpful.

Wait for the agent to come out and call names. They also ask about anyone waiting to check-in for appointments. If you have an appointment they check your name on their list and mark it asking you to wait.

If you are walking in, request them, and they will give you a second list that is for Walk-Ins. Put your name in that list.

They were working the process very efficiently and quickly today. Just a couple of minutes to max of 5 minutes for each person.

When there aren't any Appointment folks waiting, they call out and take in people from the Walk In list.

When I got there at 2:50, there were about 10 Walk-Ins ahead of me, and nobody with an Appointment. Almost 6-8 of them got cleared very rapidly. There was a change of some officers at 3 PM, and suddenly a flood of people with Appointments that showed up at 3 PM (even ones with later appointments like 4:30). They ran through those in about an hour and then started taking walk ins when there were no other Appointments.

There may be some pattern to when the Appointment people show up. If they keep showing up, Walk Ins will not get a turn. But if they show up in a flood and get cleared out, the Walk Ins get taken.

No such thing as 6 slots per shift. Other than that, this Forum is the God! Thank you thank you thank you to all you folks for the valuable information you contribute here. Hope I have given back some with this post.

You are so welcome 1kChinito. My theory is it never hurts to try and if you don't get it so you can try again like a radio contest(which I have won by figuring out how to do it correctly). If you don;t get the walk in on the first go at least you have an appointment. Heck if Wednesday did not work then Sunday morning or another foggy day.

The reason I chose Wednesday was because of the rain/fog in the morning. Who wants to sit at the airport on a rainy foggy day? Perhaps other applicants were flying in and their flights were delayed so they missed or rescheduled their appointments.

I read online about the extra agents on the weekdays. Mondays and Fridays are bad anywhere DMV to Doctors Offices. Wednesdays are good as its midweek or Saturday mornings or Sunday mornings when most people are at church at least you would get a walk in appointment of one who never showed up or rescheduled at the last minute.

Then there is the Date musical chair game where I go online every few hours to see of any cancellations by using the Month Calendar on the GOES appointment scheduler on the website. Any blue color designates days with availability .

Anyways we had an appointment in SF and we live in the South Bay so it was not out of our way and we arrived to our appointment 90 minutes before so we had time for lunch and to walk.

But never go around any major holiday.

My Mother just got conditionally approved and we will try to get her to her interview on a Sunday morning.

Anyways I don't mind hanging around the airport anyways better than the DMv office or an Emergency Room.

Talked with some very interesting people from Germany, Italy and China and we discussed about having another office at Oakland and San Jose airport for the GE enrollment.

Awesome kitpence. Congratulations!!!!!!! I hope my information posted above was of help for your good luck. Cheers!!! Daniel

Thank you for sharing your experience as well as confirming there are more than 6 walk-in spots available. PM arrival seems to be better than AM arrival.

Moderator's Note:
 

A recent post about interview openings at MCI was moved to the followoing thread:
TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator

SFO
Yes [4h] (04/16/2017 1pm)


Arrived at SFO around 1pm. 7 or 8 people has been waiting outside.

The one before me arrived 1 hour earlier than me.

I don't think they have limit about the walk-ins. They will take whenever they can.

But I guess I come on a bad day. Many come for the appointments. So I have to wait for 4 hours before my turn.

I was hoping to get it done within 2 hours.

The process itself was pretty straight forward. They asked you some questions to confirm you are the real applicant. Mine was done within 10 minutes.

I even got the confirmation email before leaving the airport.

My advice is: If you want to try walk-ins, come as early as possible.

I wish they have a second office in the bay area.

TPA - No 4/17/17

JFK will NOT see you as a walk in. I repeat... no walk ins. I spoke with several officers, there is far too many scheduled appt's to take non-appts. The only way you'll be seen without one is if you're in the program already and are ONLY there for document updates or name changes. They gave me a bit of advice that the schedule does open up often (cancelations, appt changes, etc)... and believe it or not it did! You just have to continually check and I was able to get two appts in one week. A little patience goes a long way. While I was there they turned away a lady that drove 3+ hours from Albany. Her husband had an appointment and she did not. The officers were nice about it. How could they see non appts ahead of appts was kind of the reasoning. Plus the waiting area with the video playing was a bit packed. I felt bad initially, but then I thought about it... who would drive that far without knowing if they'd be interviewed? Apparently a few years ago when the program was less popular it was easier to get a walk in at the offices. I don't live very far so it's no sweat for me. Although... I do wish I knew before going because paying to park for nothing is not something I particularly enjoy doing.

From the wikipost at the top of the page:

AUS does take walk-ins. My coworker got in between 2 appointments on 4/5/17 got it done.

Thank you for sharing. Wiki has been updated.

A data point for interview walk-ins at SEA.. I went there myself on 4/17 to add an additional passport to my NEXUS record (Canadian passport, I'm a dual citizen but only recently obtained my first Canadian passport).

While I was there another guy came in and said his GE interview appointment was scheduled for July and he asked if he could get it then and the agent said sure and asked him to sign in. I know walk-ins can be YMMV depending on how busy they are, but that day it was definitely possible. I had no waiting to see an agent to add my additional passport either... it's a good sized office with several agents working. Perhaps trying to time your visit when international arrivals are not happening there would be more agents available in the GE interview office (that's a good strategy at any airport).

The time was around 11:30am if that's of any help.

I just got my interview done last night at SFO as a walk-in. I can also confirm as have others here, that SFO no longer has a "6-person" walk-in limit for the day. You can show up whenever and just wait. There is no sign-in sheet outside the office, so you have to wait for a CBP officer to come out every so often with the clip board asking for people with appt's or ppl that are walk-ins and sign in on the sign-in sheet.

A word of advice though. When you get to the office you will see people sitting in the chairs outside. There is no line and no order of how people sit. People just sit anywhere so it behooves you ask around and see who's there for a walk-in and what the order is, because until the CBP officer comes out again, you will not have the opportunity to sign-in as a walk-in, and if multiple walk-ins happen to arrive around the same time as you, you'll need to police yourselves to remember the order of the new arrivals so you sign in according to your order of arrival.

This is important because, as others have noted here, they see walk-ins whenever there's a break/gap in the scheduled appointments. So it could be that between two influxes of appointments they manage to fit one walk-in. As you can see, making sure you are in the right order could make a difference of a few hours.

Thanks, I've added your data point to the wiki, however, for the sake of completeness, can you please share the time that you arrived and how long you had to wait?

I arrived around 7:30, total wait time was about two hours. It sounds like the wait time and likelihood of being seen as a walk-in really depends on the flow of the people with appointments. For example, if the appointment folks are showing up on time and being brought as scheduled, then you could be waiting forever. On the other hand, if the flow is fast, and their meetings are getting done in a few minutes vs. 15 minutes, then everyone gets shifted up so that there ends up being surplus time for walk-ins.