Washington— U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) today announced the initial expansion of the Global Entry program to four additional airports: Minneapolis - St. Paul International Airport, Minneapolis, Minn. March 5; Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Charlotte, N. C. March 12; Denver International Airport, Denver, Colo. March 19 and Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, Phoenix, Ariz. March 26. In January, President Obama signed an Executive Order announcing new initiatives to increase travel and tourism in the United States while encouraging job creation, including making the Global Entry pilot program a permanent initiative. This expansion will make expedited clearance through the Global Entry program available at airports serving 97 percent of international travelers arriving in the United States.

Global Entry— now available at 24 U.S. international airports—allows pre-approved members a streamlined, automated alternative to regular passport processing lines. The program currently reduces average wait times by more than 70 percent, with more than 75 percent of travelers using Global Entry processed in under five minutes.

At Global Entry kiosks, members insert their machine readable passport or lawful permanent resident card into a document reader, provide digital fingerprints for comparison with fingerprints on file, answer customs declaration questions on the kiosk’s touch-screen, and then present a transaction receipt to CBP officers before leaving the inspection area. Over the last three years, CBP has enrolled over 270,000 members in Global Entry who have used its expedited processing more than 1.9 million times.