RandomNobody

That describes my passport.

No RFID in mine, still good for another 3 years or so.

And still works for the GE kiosks using the OCR scanner portion.

wilp888

I have been a member of GE for about 5 years and I received a random check 2-3 years ago. I received an X on my receipt at SFO returning from HKG. I went to the CBP officer who just wrote an A on my receipt. After I collected my bags, I was told to go to the Agriculture Inspection line and was told to put my bags in the X-ray machine. On the other side, the CBP agent asked me to wait and called over a lady in plain clothes with a clip board. She explained that she was a Supervisor (or some title like that) and that they were doing a random audit check on GE members. She asked me if I had anything to declare and I replied in the negative. They opened my bags, took some items out, checked around the linings and repacked my bags and thank me for the cooperation. It was a very quick process and I was not sent over to the secondary inspection area. Sounds like the OP had a random check also but they were a little more thorough at MCO. In my case, the CBP officer specifically said that they were doing a random check.

jpdx

FWIW, I received an X four times in 2013; at LAX (twice), ORD, and SEA. In each case, there was some sort of terminal malfunction (computer froze on the page with declaration questions & spat out the X). In every case, the X was resolved by the initial officer within 90 seconds, without any threatening questions or secondaries. The next day, the following email arrived:

Neither the initial officer, enrollment office, or the folks behind this surprisingly friendly email could explain what was going on (fingerprints ok, passport ok, information current, etc), so I just came to accept that Xs happen and are really nothing to worry about.

chollie

As you note, getting an 'X' doesn't automatically mean a full, time-consuming, intimidating secondary.

It doesn't necessarily get cleared in 90 seconds, either.

It's too soon to tell, but it could be that now that the GE program has been around for a while, CBP is tightening things up. More secondaries, zero tolerance on things that few people have ever declared - and that few, if any agents have challenged or questioned in the past, including prescription meds that aren't even mentioned on the I-94.

Also odd to require all food to be declared and then resolve the food declaration by sending the pax to the ag station for an xray - to verify that someone honest enough to declare food has actually declared all their food items? I never had this happen prior to GE (declare cookies or chocolate and get sent to ag screening).

nrr

OP, and as I noted in #10, and me, were both sent to secondary. Your issue was with a defective machine; for both of us, the machine was working properly. [Though it didn't ask either of us to verify flights.]
What you encountered is the "usual" procedure--go to the next available agent, get cleared immediately. So if the (exceptional) "X" is encountered and one has only a minor inconvenience, most of us can live with that. But this is NOT what happened to the OP (and for me, to a lesser extent).
PS: As I noted in #10, I also received the same email you did--I wonder if OP will(?) [To me, it is a good sign that GE wants to keep the system "kink" free, and is sending these emails...but what OP described, should not have happened to him.]

GUWonder

CBP is doing about 70k GE enrollments a month as of late. With the bigger pool, more random secondaries of GE travelers are going to happen. Have the odds of a GE member being hit with a random secondary increased for any given trip? Not sure.

stylo4444

I haven't received any email as of yet, it's been 4 days though. Not sure if you received an email any sooner. I guess we'll see. My next international trip isn't for another a few weeks, so I suppose I won't be able to really know until then. Although my status on the GOES site doesn't show to be any different.

Majuki

My question is when you get the green OK (or whatever it is) while doing the fingerprints, I imagine it's not doing a real-time match compared to the database? Phrase another way, when do the fingerprints get matched with what's on file, and does all four fingers being green indicate it's a valid match with your prints on file?

I have had GE for over 4 years and have used it extensively, and it wasn't until this year where I got an X. (And so far both times I've gotten an X this year.) The first time it seemed like everybody was getting the X at EWR back in February, and the CBP officer helping people with using the kiosks was even commenting about everybody getting an X. That time I was with a friend and my wife, but neither of them got the X on adjacent machines. My passport was stamped and I was on my way.

Today at LAX I got the X as well - my wife ended up getting the show receipt at exit. Like at EWR, the CBP officer just stamped the receipt. The officer at the exit to the customs hall asked if we had any fruits, vegetables, food, etc. I said we had some confectionery items - we had brought back a bunch of boxes of Tim Tams - and we were on our way. He mentioned something about biometrics, so I was wondering if my fingerprints were the problem.

The first time I got an X I was really concerned, but this time I wasn't too worried about it. Now, I didn't get escorted off to secondary like you did nor asked additional questions at passport control, but I chalked both of these instances up to being a random occurrence, bad fingerprint reading, kiosk issue etc. It's not worth worrying about too much. Also, for the record, I didn't get an e-mail back in February about the first X. I'll have to see this time around. I just think as a previous poster said that the GE kiosks are seeing way, way more volume than they have in the past, so we just might be the lucky ones.

Overall, I still think GE is a great program and has been hassle free. Treat it as a going concern until you hear otherwise or are subjected to secondaries consistently on subsequent journeys.

On a loosely related note, has anyone noticed the questions have reverted to the old style that match the blue customs form? For instance, the question now specifically mentions "food" on the declaration. It was this way back in 2010 or so until CBP changed the GE kiosk questions to be more permissive. For instance, I remember the question being worded to include only those things that needed an ag inspection or might be refused entry such as meats, fruits, etc. (And I remember this from February too.) If I get an e-mail about my GE experience today, I will mention the changed questions in my reply.

Hellfire

First time I used my nexus card I got the X along with my friend (who did not have nexus). It was rather strange actually. We had flow a domestic leg (YEG-YVR) and had a couple of hours before our YVR-ORD segment and we exited the airport to go have breakfast as our bags were checked all the way though and so we just had our carry on. Got back to the airport, and went though security and then US customs. I used the nexus machine, friend went the normal way and away we when. Shortly after we got to the gate we were paged and told that oh they missed us for extra security screening when we had gone though US customs (gate person said it might have been a last min TSA add) and they re-issued our boarding passes to now have the XXX on it. We had to wait around for two US boarder people to come to the gate, pat us down and search our carry on.

They were nice about it, but I found it strange we got "missed" initially.

stylo4444

I did want to update this thread since I have traveled international twice since this occurrence with receiving the dreaded "X", including the Dom. Republic which is where I was coming back from when this had occurred.

Both times, no issues at all. Fingerprints scanned, answered the questions, verified my flight info and off I went. I was certainly a bit anxious the first trip, I remember walking over to the GE Kiosk thinking..."here we go...i hope there are no issues." and there were not. Same thing second time. So I can only assume it was a random occurrence...as mentioned before, the screen did not go past the questions when this incident happened...I had scanned my fingerprints, answered the questions but it did not get to confirming the flight info and just spit out the "X". I'll take it as either a technical glitch or just a random occurrence.

Sopwith

My wife got the X a few months ago. We didn't even notice until the agent hauled us both into secondary because wife had renewed her passport and forgot to update Nexus. We both got the bag search and multiple scoldings for not updating, then sent on our way with instructions to not use Nexus on the return and until the update was done.

chollie

I'm glad to hear things have been going smoothly. Thanks for coming back to update us! ^

SJC AA

Never an X on my first 15 or so trips; have now gotten X's on my last two trips.

On the last one I asked the agent whether I had done something wrong. He said I had a common name and the computer wanted an agent to verify that I'm the right one with my name. That doesn't make sense, though: my name is not really common.

Any advice?

dustman81

That makes no sense as it uses your fingerprints to verify your identity, so it shouldn't matter if your name is a common one or not.

seawolf

There's been numerous press releases by CBP indicating Trusted Travelers being detained and having their membership revoked due to smuggling controlled substances from narcotics to firearms and/or not declaring cash more than the declarable threshold.