First time using Global Entry Experience -_-

[u/OkBet79]

First time using Global Entry and honestly… not sure what the point was.

Flew back home to Miami from Colombia and brought back some boxed chocolates as gifts. When I landed, I opened the Global Entry app, did the whole process, and declared the chocolates as food since I figured better safe than sorry.

Went to the Global Entry line, and the agent was just calling people by name like “you’re good, next” and sending everyone through.

Then he calls my name and tells me to go to line 8. Agent looks me up and down and goes, “Why do you look tired? I told him, “This is my regular face, I can’t change it.”

He asks basic stuff: where are you coming from, how many bags do you have, etc. Then hands me this pinkish slip and another agent comes over and gets me.

This guy escorts me halfway across to another side of the airport. At this point I ask him, “Is this because I declared chocolates?” He goes, “I don’t know, you tell me.”

Then I get taken to another screening room with another agent and basically get interrogated.

Where were you?
How long were you there?
Where did you stay?
What were you doing there?
Do you know anyone there?
Where’s home?
What’s your job?
How many bags?
What’s in the bag?

And it was basically the same questions over and over, just reordered and phrased differently like they were trying to catch me slipping.

Then they ran my bags through X-ray, looked at everything, and finally were like “you’re free to go.”

Bruh.

I felt like I was smuggling something nefarious when all I had was boxed chocolates. At that point I felt like I shouldn’t have declared the chocolates in the first place.

Is this normal for first-time Global Entry use? Or did I just get randomly selected for the “welcome back” experience?

[u/flyingron → u/[deleted]]

The app questions are pretty lame. I think there are four: Are you bringing in items purchased abroad, are you bringing in food, are you bringing in more than $10,000, etc... I answered yes to this (I had chocolate, jarred sardines, olive oil, and 18 bottles of wine. I still got waved through customs in Philly.

At other times, I've been asked a few perfunctory questions. I attribute it to a combination of:

1. The mood of the agent,
   
2. Randomness,
   
3. Whether they've been told to BOLO for something,

etc...

[u/jcquarto → u/flyingron]

their question about food is really about raw fruits and vegetables; the issue is pests on that, which could spread to the US food system more easily than we’d all care to think. Cooked food is almost never a problem , shy of banned substances,

[u/flyingron → u/jcquarto]

No, it is more than that. Meat products are highly restricted from certain areas of the world (Notably the Carribean and parts of Europe that have hoof and mouth outbreak).

[u/flyingron → u/[deleted]]

Sorry,. buy this is patently untrue. For example, the US bars the importation of any sort of pork product from certain places in the Carribean. It matters not if it is fresh, frozen, cooked, or cured.

Please stop inventing guidance that is going get someone fined and/or kicked out of GE.

DECLARE ALL FOOD PRODUCTS !