Global Entry Shut Down Creates Chaos, Miles-Long Lines—Undermines Security And Increases Trade Deficit

After Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced the suspension of TSA PreCheck and Global Entry due to the partial government shutdown, the White House reversed her on PreCheck. Global Entry, though, was ordered closed.

• Her claim was that fewer staffing resources (because of agents now showing up for work) needed to be dealt with. Screeners would be deferring pay until appropriations were completed for the agency.
  
• So she’d focus on general travelers rather than priority programs.
  
• But these programs actually reduce staffing needs. Pushing everyone through standard security and immigration means employees have to spend more time per traveler. Global Entry processing is mostly done by machine, and suspending that meant processing passengers by employees instead.

Global Entry kiosks were shut down at Newark.

No GE at EWR
by
u/freackodeecko in
GlobalEntry

In San Francisco it was reported that kiosks were closed but Global Entry passengers were being processed by an officer. The airport reported that Global Entry was actually open.

TSA Precheck and Global Entry remain operational at SFO this morning.

— San Francisco International Airport (SFO) ✈️ (@flySFO) February 22, 2026

Global Entry was closed in Atlanta and at New York JFK terminal 8 but reported open in Detroit. Global Entry was suspended at U.S. Preclearance in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, and Calgary.

Here’s a Global Entry machine shown as shut down for maintenance at Washington Dulles:

Global entry closed due to DHS funding.
by
u/cyabits in
GlobalEntry

Not only was Global Entry closed in Miami, but Mobile Passport Control was also. Here’s what immigration queues looked like in Miami:

There are literally thousands of people in a line that reaches miles at MIA right now. Do the right thing and reopen Global Entry, which actually uses fewer resources to process more people. This is nothing more than a political stunt. @garyleff pic.twitter.com/rR40upHsWG

— Lucas Wiseman (@Lucas_Wiseman) February 23, 2026

If this goes on for more than a few days it will depress inbound travel.

• Citizens of nearly 20 countries are eligible for U.S. Global Entry, suchas Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Mexico, Germany, India, South Korea and the U.K.

• Pushing Global Entry-eligible travelers into regular queues will back up those queues.

Already, as international tourist arrivals rose worldwide in 2025 by about 4%, U.S. foreign visits were down 6% (and spending down 7%). The U.S. was reportedly the only economy with an absolute decline in visitor spending last year. And greater border friction stories of long lines and disruptions reinforce a narrative not to bother with travel to the U.S., which has an affect at the margin.

This is a self-own on the administration’s trade priorities. Each 1% drop in international visitor spending translates to $1.8 billion less export revenue per year.

A 7% drop in foreign visitor spending implies roughly $12.6 billion less export revenue. As a sanity check that’s consistent with World Travel and Tourism Council estimates of a $12.5 billion decline.

U.S. Travel also estimates 7.6 travel jobs per $1 million in international inbound travel spending. A $12.5 billion drop in spending would affect 95,000 direct jobs. They forecase that inbound travel declines push the travel trade deficit toward $70 billion.

Now, there’s a lot of assumptions built into U.S. Travel’s economic modeling here and a presumed bias towards estimating the impact of travel on the economic on the high side. It’s useful for some back of the envelope order of magnitude sorts of estimations, but I wouldn’t overrely on the specific numbers. The point is simply to illustrate that depressing travel is harmful to the economy, that’s already happening, and it undermines the administration’s overall economic and trade goals (and the trade goals are ostensibly economic strategic!).

Cutting off Global Entry is also bad for the administration’s immigration goals. That’s because Global Entry is meant to focus staffing resources on the highest risk arrivals. By spending less time on travelers who have already been vetted, agents can spend more time vetting others. That’s what this administration especially wants! And it’s exactly what’s undermined by pushing all travelers through standard immigration processes.