A few days ago, Andrew wrote a post about being careful what medications you take out of the country. This was based on a post by Free Travel Guys, where someone encountered a CBP officer who was clearly on a power trip. The passenger was carrying some expired Xanax and Ambien with him when departing…
Continue reading: Surprising: CBP Admits They Made A Mistake And Reinstates Global Entry
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
This is not really good. It means that those who can embarrass the agency through their blogs gets a fair hearing while everyone else does not. A system that worked would give everyone a fair hearing.
That the mechanism for getting results is to have the higher ups in Washington get nervous their bosses will see their screw ups on the Internet shows just how broken the system is.
@Endre, the Ombudsman office is the one responsible for fielding and addressing concerns and complaints such as this one. It's their sole purpose it exists. @Steve, I agree. One of the points of the original post is that it shouldn't take 6 months for anyone to receive (or hope to receive) a response. Plenty of people have their clearances removed for legitimate violations, but this just wasn't one of them. Also your member of Congress can help cut through some of the red tape if you write/call him or her with a specific concern, so this is one additional avenue I was planning on using, which ultimately I didn't have to resort to.
Interesting info. Thanks. I've had global entry for 6 years or so and I do 15-20 intl trips per year so it's been great. However, the last 4 times I've come back in the USA I've had to go to the agriculture inspection area. I've asked an officer why as I've had no reason to be flagged this way and he only said "if agriculture wants to see you, they can". When I've gotten to agriculture the officers there seem confused as to why I would be there. Has anyone had this happen? I'm leaving to Japan today so I'll see if this trend continues upon my return but I suspect it will.
That's great
I also thought it was not fair what they did to him since he did not break any rules
Who looks at the expiration dates of their bottles when they travel
Great that cbp agreed that mistake was made , anyone can make a mistake
Great, so if a CBP officer abuses his power on you, you'd better hope you have a popular blog to make it embarrassing for them.
I hope that the outcome would have been the same without the blog post, but who knows?
When returning from Japan, I indicated that I was over my duty-free alcohol limit, having brought an additional litre of sake. The agent told us that we would have to go to Agriculture for additional questioning and inspection, but to wait for her to escort us. Another officer came by and asked what we were waiting for. When we told him, he asked what we were declaring. When I told him that we had a total of 3 litres of liquor between the two of us, he proceeded to lecture his colleague that this was not a valid reason to inconvenience us and sent us on our way.
I also agree with Steve above. CBP will hardly ever admit or fix a mistake, unless the media or a popular blog embarrasses them publicly. For the vast majority of people who make legitimate complaints after CBP makes a mistake, they do nothing.