I will be the first to admit that Global Entry is, on the whole, a great program in that it can save you a bunch of time when you arrive back in the U.S.
Joe and I initially got Global Entry about 7 or 8 years ago. At the time, it was a seamless process. Filling out our applications and making reservations for our interviews were super simple. And maybe we lucked out, but the person who interviewed us was friendly and personable. Believe it or not, we got into a whole conversation about, of all things, the arts scene in Central Florida.
Anyway, we were approved without question. And even when our renewal came around 5 years after, it was a piece of cake.
Things have gone downhill since then. The program itself is still fine; we used our Global Entry to return to the U.S. after a visit to Iceland this past July, and it took literally just a minute or two. But since at least late 2019, the process to renew your status is so messed up that they now give you a TWO YEAR grace period – not for you to get it done, but to give THEM enough time. And on top of that, thanks to Covid, there were months upon months when it was impossible to get an initial interview.
But that was just typical SNAFU stuff. How did something like this situation even happen?
Well, I’ll tell ya…if the Global Entry program is being run by people like the following, it all makes sense.
A woman, who we’ll call M.H., recently had a baby and was trying to get a Global Entry interview for her newborn. She was able to snag an appointment and received the following confirmation email, which she humorously interpreted.
Her comments are in red. All generally inappropriate (deep breath) colors, highlights, underlines, capitalization, boldface, double spaces between words, spelling and grammatical errors are original to whoever it was in the Global Entry office that sent her the confirmation email.
But that’s not all!
M.H. also said: The cherry on the top was that I actually replied to the email because this interview is for my infant son. I wanted to know what exactly they wanted as his proof of address. They replied back with “PPS and your driver license’s.” So, yet another rogue apostrophe in license, but what on earth is PPS? Replied back, they said “passport.” Is that a standard acronym??? LOL!
Actually, just for fun, I looked “PPS” up on DHS’s list of acronyms, abbreviations and terms. It stands for “Pre-Positioned Site” 😉 (but they do say the list, “may not contain all items used by the various Components of the Department within their individual operations.” But I think if the Department of Homeland Security, which is in charge of the Global Entry program, actually used “PPS” as an abbreviation for “passport,” it probably would have been included).
Have you ever looked at something and wondered, based on what you CAN see, how it’s even able to function? Yeah…that’s the Global Entry program in a nutshell.
Many thanks to M.H. for allowing us to share her story!
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1 comment
was told I need to explain why I went to every country I’ve ever been to in the interview. Was 159 at that time.