747FC

Aloha. I live here too.

OskiBear

On my last few international flights back to the US, no customs questions were asked during the Global Entry kiosk process (they also haven't been requiring I scan fingerprints/passport) and the print-out that I would usually hand to the Customs officer on the way out of the baggage area was taken by the agent overseeing the kiosk area.

Once down in the baggage claim exit area, there were no officers in sight and I simply exited. It actually felt a bit weird.

This was at LAX and DFW over the last 6-7 months.

Was it just a coincidence or is this becoming the norm? How does one even declare something if they wanted to?

JY1024

Moving this over to the TS/S forum for further discussion. Thanks. /JY1024, TravelBuzz moderator

danib62

Just experienced this for the first time at NAS preclearance today. Crazy how fast it was. What prevents someone with global entry from using this without having their passport with them?

aroundtheworld76

Depending on where you're flying from, you still have to show it to get on the plane. Probably also has random checks. Just like Clear does. Every X number gets randomed for a document check.

drewguy

Though if you're enrolled and it can determine who you are, what exactly would be the need for a passport?

Yes, obviously good to have but if you were actually trying to sneak through you'd have to count on getting a positive ID from the scanner of someone not yourself.

drewguy

It's the new norm.

If you had something to declare, I would tell the person taking your slip (or ask "I have something to declare - where do I do that?").

Keep in mind that according to the regs, you (at least arguably) should still be able to make an oral declaration if someone from CBP asks to conduct a search: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/33817631-post1020.html

So, if you did have something to declare, and CBP stopped you to ask, you should immediately say "why, yes, I do have a suitcase full of cash. . . . and I've been looking where to declare it." CBP seems to have gotten comfortable enough with sniffer dogs and other systems to be able to identify pax they have interest in proactively.

TPACjv

I had the same feeling when arriving at JFK T1 today. The GE process was completely paperless and I heard a CPB trainer say the system is new and there's a new training on it and not everyone is qualified yet. It was interesting because the CBP officers at the GE podium called each passenger by name and verified the screen content against our passports.

It's also worth noting the non-GE self serve CBP kiosks have been removed and replaced by officers.

The saving grace was that on the way out CBP officers line the main exit under nothing to declare, which blocks access to the declaration lines. So I just asked if I needed to declare the items I was concerned about (packaged food / alcohol) and the officer was like, nahhh.

GUWonder

What may limit the numbers is that the airline generally doesn’t allow people to fly to the US on such flight without a passport. Doesn’t the airline check passengers’ passports near the boarding gate to take the NAS-US flights?

danib62

So we had a weird case on this trip where knowing this might have saved us some headache. My wife lost her passport 7 years ago, reported it as lost/stolen, got a new passport, found the “lost/stolen” passport, and then accidentally grabbed the “lost/stolen” passport for this trip. Bahamian immigration caught it but let us in anyways (you don’t make tourist money turning people away, right?) and told us to make sure we cleared it up with the US embassy before returning. Embassy advised us that our best course of action was to have someone overnight us the right passport which we did.

Given that all the airline did was a visual check of the passport the “lost/stolen” passport would have worked just fine.

GUWonder

I wouldn’t be so sure about the last part above working for a return flight to the US via ports of entry where paperless GE 2.0 of sorts is in play without a physical passport scan by CBP or CBP-linked passport control kiosk. A lost/stolen passport number entered into the airline reservation for APIS/check-in on the flight to the US would have that passport number be sent to the US CBP prior to boarding of the flight for checking against various databases. That should result in a flag as the database check would have it flagged as an attempted use of a reported/filed LSTD US passport. That kicked up flag can result in a DNB message sent back to the airlines to prevent this from working.

danib62

Yea that was my one fear. It didn't stop us on the flight down though or get flagged by the TSA ID scanning machine at IAD. Obviously we were better off having a valid passport in hand, but UPS was delayed a day and things definitely seemed dicey at one point...

iamflyer

I assume in the case where it works, the newer valid passport is entered into the reservation, likely already saved in the airlines profile, so no red flags are triggered.

Xyzzy

Agents lve to scan passports at checkin ... even when there is passport data from the passenger already in their systems.

ExpatExp

It used to be the case that it was a good idea to return a lost passport to the State Department to be cancelled, if you found it again later, and the record of the loss would then be removed or adjusted in the passport holder's history. I recall this made it easier to deal with any future lost passport issues. I wonder if this is still the case.