For the past several years, citizens of the United States and nearly a dozen other countries have been able to use Global Entry, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. Members enter the United States through automatic kiosks at select airports. The program is considered to be very successful, having saved travelers multiple hours of standing in line when entering the U.S.
Unfortunately, the success of the program is its greatest liability – CBP is receiving as many as 7,000 Global Entry applications per day and the government is currently having a hard time keeping up. In fact, the backlog, which CBP said was about 300,000 applications earlier this year, is now closer to about 350,000. So delays of upwards of 4 months before a new applicant could get an interview hasn’t been unusual in recent months, and even trying to get a renewal has frequently taken months.
That’s the bad news. But there’s some good news, too…
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that if you’re renewing your Global Entry and have submitted your application, if your status continues to say “pending,” you will be given a grace period and your privileges will last one year beyond the original expiration date.
Well, I guess that’s one way to put a band-aid on the problem?
There’s actually some other good news (well, sort of) with that report – USA Today wrote the same thing this past September (actually they reported at that time that the grace period was increasing from 6 months to a year). Not that it’s a good thing that they’re still backlogged or that their way of dealing with it is to just let people get another year without whatever rigamarole is supposed to be done, but at least the government has figured out a way for those of us who are renewing to not have to worry about losing our Global Entry status once we have it, simply because the government can’t get their act together.
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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