Global Entry Enrollment on Arrival
 

CBP email text re Enrollment on Arrival. Currently available at IAH, YVR, HOU, and AUS. SFO later this summer.

Subject: Why Wait? Interview for Global Entry When You Arrive.

Dear Global Entry Applicant,

Starting today, you have the unique opportunity to interview for Global Entry when you return from your next international trip at Houston, Hobby, Austin, San Francisco, and Vancouver.

What is Enrollment on Arrival? With Enrollment on Arrival, Global Entry applicants who are conditionally approved can complete their interviews, the last step of the Global Entry process, while they are clearing through United States Customs and Border Protection or Preclearance. This options is now available at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) in Houston, Vancouver International Airport (YVR), William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), or Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS). The program will expand to additional airports this summer, to include San Francisco International Airport.

What do I do when I land in the international terminal? Follow the signage directing you to CBP officers who can complete your Global Entry interview during your admissibility inspection. You won't need any additional documents other than the requisite documents for international travel (e.g., your passport). After completing the process, you will be directed to a short feedback survey to help us improve this new opportunity for Global Entry applicants to Enroll on Arrival from an international trip. If you have a connecting flight, keep in mind that the Enroll on Arrival interview will take a few minutes longer than the typical CBP processing.

If you would like to save time and effort, then join thousands of other Global Entry applicants who are conditionally approved and participate in Enrollment on Arrival.

For updated information regarding Enrollment on Arrival, please refer to the CBP website at: https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-t...s/global-entry

Well this is turning into a roller coaster ride of surprises!

Just received an email from the CBP letting me know that International travellers arriving at certain US airports can compete the process without having to schedule an interview. You'll just do the finger prints and photo as part of the normal entry process with a CBP Officer to complete the process.

Crucially for me. my arrival airport is SFO which is on the list.

Full story here: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/nationa...-international

That is great news. They should have done it long ago.

Thanks to Andrew Wright

Release Date: July 7, 2017
Program launches at airports in Houston, Austin, San Francisco and Vancouver

WASHINGTON—U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched Enrollment on Arrival at George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), William P. Hobby Airport (HOU), Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Vancouver International Airport (YVR) for conditionally-approved Global Entry applicants to complete their interview, the final step of the Global Entry enrollment process, while clearing CBP processing. The program will shorten enrollment wait times for travelers at some of the busiest enrollment areas and will expand to additional airports in the coming months.

Global Entry Logo“Global Entry continues to be one of CBP’s most successful and popular programs with application volume steadily increasing over the past several years,” said Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan. “With Enrollment on Arrival, we are adapting and innovating our process to meet the program’s demands by providing flexibility and additional options for travelers who need to complete their Global Entry interview.”

Once a traveler is conditionally-approved, instead of scheduling an interview at a Global Entry Enrollment Center, the traveler can complete the enrollment interview during CBP primary inspection at a participating airport. Upon arrival, travelers will be directed to a primary booth designated specifically for Enrollment on Arrival. A CBP officer will conduct both the primary processing and Global Entry interview and collect the traveler’s biometrics to complete the enrollment. The traveler will then be cleared for entry into the United States and will be a Global Entry member.

https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/nationa...-international

Partially this makes sense to clear a relatively low risk person into the program before they enter the country but a few things seems off to me. IAH & SFO make sense because of the multitude of international flights that connect to participating countries (where foreign residents qualify to GE) but AUS is a relatively low foreign travel volume airport. YVR somewhat makes more sense to me because of preclearance and the number of international connections but to less qualified residents. Canadians will do Nexus anyways.

It also means that there will have to be an office at each airport to do such interviews before entering the country which means more space in the airports immigration area & more staff.

One additional question, what happens if someone is turned down while in that interview? It's less common as people are conditionally approved but it does happen. If a major disqualifying issue comes up during the interview it seems highly possible that the foreign traveler would also be denied entry due to such information.

Did it last week at IAH and was a matter of 5min. Great :)

I just applied and am only due to go to NYC, Boston and LA over the next while. May have to schedule a trip to Houston!

In order for you to take advantage of Global Entry Enrollment on Arrival, you need to arrive from an airport outside of U.S.

sorry! that's what I meant! London to Houston :)

Maybe in the near future, NYC, Boston or LA will be added to Global Entry Enrollment on Arrival soon.

Thanks for the DP, Duck1981 --- any info on whether there are limitations on hours of operation for this program? My partner wants to use it in August at SFO with flight arrival of 6am.

People who design beta tests of programs will typically try the work process on for size at different points in the market. SFO & IAH are major international hubs while AUS is not. It makes sense to try this at two types of facilities.

The entire program approach makes sense because the interview serves two purposes: A....Matching a real live person to a GOES profile & B... clearing up remaining points of confusion, if there are any.

Hello

Sorry can't help on this one - the GE interview desk is simply (at IAH) another desk in the row of 'standard' CBP desks for passport checking etc. so I guess it depends if they have an officer available or not.

D

Great idea! Could the list of cities have to do with the interview wait time there? I know when I went through the GE process last year, the wait for an interview in DC was almost two months (which I thought was ridiculous) but I remember reading about much longer waits elsewhere.

Has anyone gone through the process yet at SFO? What is it like?

I swear I saw Global Entry Enrollment on Arrival signage at EWR Terminal B when I passed through on July 17.

SFO on arrival?
 

I went to the effort to plan a 4 day LA stopover (KIX-DEN) in order to interview in Long Beach. With this "on arrival" option, a flight via SFO looks possible.

I wonder if this desk is always open, and if so, how much time I need between flights in order to be assured I get it done.

Found this comment from July 14th: When you get off an international flight, RUN, don't walk, to the interview line. It fills up fast and there was only one lane doing interviews at a rate of 15-20 minutes per person. At one point there were 12+ waiting but some gave up after being told they'd be waiting hours. Unfortunately, it was all extremely inefficient and not much of a time-saver.

Okay, I have done it on Sunday morning after arriving on UA2 at 9:00AM. The SIngle Counter is actually, between the Global Entry Lane and the Crew/APEC Card Channel. Since there was no one , I had to wait for him to setup. You need to fill up a customs form as there is no automatic machine to fill it up. The Officer processed my entry first and then proceeded with the Interview. It will take about 10 to 15 minutes, plus some time if you are the first for him to setup.

Thank you for sharing. Since there are earlier flights arriving SFO prior to 9 am, I wonder if this counter would also be available prior to 9 am.

Having returned to the UK yesterday, I thought I would update this thread with some useful information for fellow travelers.

The good news is that I have my Global Entry status after a few issues.

On arrival at SFO, I followed the line marked 'Global Entry On Arrival' as instructed in the mail I was sent, only to be turned around and sent to the normal immigration arrival line for International travelers! It appears that you physically have to see a CBP Officer and be admitted to the US before you can complete Global Entry.

Once I had been processed, I was allowed to return to the 'Global Entry On Arrival' line where I was asked a series of questions about my application by a CBP Officer. After that I was approved but my finger prints came back as poor from the FBI (See other threads here on that problem.) The CBP Officer said that a supervisor would need to look at this but didn't work at SFO and I would receive an email in due course with the outcome.

So I left! Fortunately I still had my scheduled appointment at LAX two days later and having not heard anything from SFO, I went for that appointment too. Was seen straight away despite being 40 minutes early and processing took around 10 minutes. Again the finger prints came back as poor but this time the CBP Officer was able to deal with this and I had my approval email later that morning.

When I related the SFO story to the CBP Officer, he remarked that 'Global Entry On Arrival' is relatively new.

Hope this helps other people applying and doing 'Global Entry On Arrival.'

Yes. See my post above for my experience. I can add that there was only one desk open at SFO and one person in front of me. My interview took a while too.

Is there operating hours for the on-arrival interviews? I landed at 2pm yesterday and attempted to do the on-arrival interview but was informed that they were closed since the officer doing them was going to take his break. Guess I will have to try next week but it seems a little ridiculous that they don't list hours and then when you get there, they tell you you can't do it.

According to the CBP website:

Just out of curiosity, was this flight planned for a while?

If so, did you consider trying to make an appointment for, say, 3 pm-ish or 4 pm-ish instead of trying for Enrollment on Arrival?

It seems like it might actually be less effort to repeatedly check for newly-opened appointment slots than dealing with a lack of certainty about officer availability, sudden lines, and random break times.

No, flight was booked 4 days prior to arrival. I checked before but the earliest is still March '18. I will try again next week.

Trick is to check very frequently when your desired Global Entry office is open. Usually in a few days, you will find something suitable. What you are looking for is a last minute cancellation, which can be in 24 hours. Good luck and please come back and let us know what you end up with.

Moderator's Note: Topic Drift
 

Folks,

The subject of this thread is Global Entry Enrollment on Arrival. We are straying into a topic that should be discussed in the following thread:
TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator

Enrollment on Arrival -PHL
 

Has anyone completed their Global Entry interview with the new "enrollment on arrival" program at PHL? Just wondering where you go, how it works, etc. I'll be coming back from an international trip at the end of December, and that weeks ahead of when I'd otherwise be able to get an appointment.

Thanks for the help!

Looks like the number of available locations has expanded again, LAX is now on the list!

So, the Mrs. needs to do the interview, and we have a flight scheduled to land at 8:20pm. They show their hours for enrollment on arrival as being until 9:00pm. Does that seem doable, or would that be pushing it? Does anyone know what happens if I were to schedule an appointment the following day at SEA (just in case the office is closed or our flight is delayed) would they let her do enrollment on arrival anyway?

It should be fine. Hopefully her flight will arrive on time and Global Entry Enrollment on Arrival is still open. She can then ask interviewing officer to cancel her next day SEA appointment.

If Enrollment on Arrival is not open, she will go to her scheduled appointment the next day in Seattle.

Great news!
We just applied for Global Entry (thanks to Amex for picking up the $200 in charges) and setting up an interview for LAX or LGB would be a pain in the middle of the work week as I work.

With LAX open for Global entry on arrival, we will now be taking advantage of this when we return from Japan at the end of the month!

Thanks @hannibal for letting us know!

I received my conditional approval and have an international flight in a couple weeks landing in ATL with an hour and 55 minute layover. Would that give me enough time to complete my interview and make my connection (I'll be carrying on and using mobile passport to clear passport control at ATL). Delta changed my flight time since booking the ticket so I maybe able to connection changed to the next flight two hours later.

There is an interview slot available at DTW a half hour after I'm scheduled to land but I am nervous about my flight being late and missing the interview.

Any chance they have Enrollment on Arrival for Nexus as well?

No. Nexus requires an interview with both CBP and CBSA officials.

Hi all, I've just received my conditional approval and am hoping to use Enrollment on Arrival when I fly in to DFW next week. Any recent experiences? Most of the above seems to be in the pilot period, so I don't know whether to make a back-up appointment, or if things are going more smoothly these days. And it would be good to know if I should "run, don't walk" to immigration to beat the queues?

I am in the same situation - conditional approval in 5 days from online enrollment.
Only did this because Amex picked up the tab...

Wife and I will be flying back from Asia in a couple of weeks to LAX.
LAX is a recently added on location for enrollment on arrival so I'll report back on how it goes.

I ended up doing mine at DtW yesterday before my flight and glad I did it instead of doing the interview upon arrival. I’ll be able to use GE when my internationalflight lands in Atlanta this way.

Can I ask how you can do the interview BEFORE your flight ?

I thought you could only do this after you arrive to an International terminal ?

How do you contact CBP from the departure side ?

From CBP.gov:
"U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to allow Global Entry applicants who are conditionally approved to complete their interviews upon arrival into the United States."

presumably he made an appointment in advance?

Thanks for the reply and nice to know you can make a departing appointment ahead of arriving!

thanks for sharing your experience, good to know! Unfortunately there aren't any appointments at either of the airports I'll be near while I'm in the US, so I'll give Enrollment on Arrival a try at DFW and if that doesn't work will do it at the embassy in London.