Pre-clearance of US Immigration and Customs in Ireland has long been one of my favourite travel experiences. I have done it at Shannon several times as part of the BA flight from London City, which stops off there to re-fuel.
I wrote about this some months ago. You can read about this experience here.
However, I noticed recently that they have changed some of the area about in the latest video from the TSA explaining the process.
The major change is that you go through the TSA-approved (Shoes off, laptops out) security before joining the US immigration lines. This is better as there are more staff to do the screening.
However, they have changed the location of the Global Entry line to the non-US residents side of the hall.
This is a disaster!
It means that people who clear through Global Entry have to join a line full of non-US residents giving their fingerprints, answering questions etc. It took 30 seconds to do the machine yesterday and about 20 minutes in line.
Plus the Immigration Inspector does all the normal questions, most of which you have already answered on the machine.
My experience yesterday was that the agent didn’t know that non-Green Card Holders could enroll in Global Entry – I had to spend 10 minutes explaining this process to him, how I managed to get enrolled, what the process was, the UK Police checks etc. All in all, the experience took longer than if I had been in the non-US residents queue.
So, Dublin pre-clearance, which was excellent is now a poor experience.
I traveled through the Dublin pre-clearance two days ago and had no problems. I think it may just be a matter of luck as to who you get taking the GE users. I handed them my GE card and walked on through. You just never know what you’re going to get with GE, sometimes it’s no questions, next time you get 30 of them.
I went through in June – similar issue with them not understanding a non-resident having GE. My guy had to go and speak to a colleague to check it was OK! They also don’t have a clear exit point for once you have your GE printout – I ended up just having to (with permission) go in front of someone in the queue at that end so I could get out!