Calais, Maine, has a Global Entry office and RI doesn't? Mark Patinkin says the Feds hate us

I’ve decided the federal government hates Rhode Island.

The proof, highlighted in a Providence Journal story this week by my able colleague Patrick Anderson, is that we’re just about the only state where you can’t get the interview required for the U.S. Customs Global Entry program.

But I learned it’s so much worse than you think.

First, let me say I realized this a few months ago when I applied for Global Entry, which I did because I have a son in Australia, and it’s required for dads to visit kids, and coming back into the country is often a long ordeal.

Global Entry allegedly speeds that.

“Skip the lines with Global Entry,” the Feds’ website says.

It costs a hundred bucks, but I figured it was worth it.

Plus, the website promised: “It’s easy – just follow these steps.”

It turns out the application is not easy at all, but I did it anyway, then got to the part where you schedule the interview, and I couldn’t believe it.

No Rhode Island office.

The nearest was Logan. And the next appointments were months away.

So I gave up.

But let me get back to why the lack of a Global Entry office here is worse than you might think. You’d assume it would mean such offices are only in major cities.

Not true.

Talk about Rhode Island being insulted again.

Get this – even though we don’t have an interview office, Hartford’s airport does. Are they serious? Bradley gets one and Green, which is better, doesn’t? And why doesn’t the federal government realize Providence is cooler than Hartford?

I continued to check the list of places that do have interview offices and was shocked.

Little Rock has one.

So does Boise.

For goodness sake so does little South Bend, Indiana, and I understand that they have Notre Dame, but Providence College’s basketball team is better, so we should get the Global Entry office instead of them.

But it gets even worse than that.

Brace yourself for this one.

Calais, Maine, has a Global Entry interview office. Calais has a population of 3,116. Rhode Island has over a million. Yet Calais gets one and we don’t?

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Admittedly, Calais is a border crossing, so I guess the feds figure they already have Customs agents there.

But are you telling me they don’t have any agents in Rhode Island? Come on.

Even Grand Portage, Minnesota, has a Global Entry office, and they’re even smaller than Calais – like, five times smaller, with a population of 614.

Then there’s the ultimate insult. Sweetgrass, Montana, has an office for Global Entry interviews.

Sweetgrass has a population of 70. That’s not a typo.

What the heck is going on?

The supposed reason, as Patrick pointed out, is Rhode Island used to have a Global Entry interview office on Jefferson Boulevard in Warwick, but it got shut down in 2020 when pandemic travel dried up, and it hasn’t been ramped back up.

But why in the world can’t you put a Customs guy in some room at Green Airport?

Patrick tried to ask such things of the government, but they didn’t answer.

As for applying for Global Entry online, although site promises, “It’s easy,” it's not, plus there’s a daunting message early on.

“Application processing time … 4-6 months,” it says.

Memo to the federal government – nothing takes 4-6 months.

They also have you upload documents – I did my passport, which expires in 2029, and I am nervous my global app won’t be finished by then.

They also ask if you’ve been convicted of a crime in the U.S. or any other country. I said “No,” which was a fib, since during Eastern Europe’s collapse of communism in 1989, I went to Romania, which was then like North Korea, and I got arrested and booted from the country by the secret police for trying to interview a dissident. But the dictator got killed in a people’s revolt a few weeks later, so hopefully, if Global Entry goes to Bucharest to look, they won’t find my arrest record.

Like I said, I filled out the application a few months ago, and I still remember thinking at the end, where you schedule the interview, that it was a bait and switch, because I wouldn’t have bothered if I knew there was no Rhode Island interview office.

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At one point in the application, they ask for your nationality.

I put down “U.S.” of course.

Meaning I’m an American.

With rights.

And I think Rhode Island having no local Global Entry office violates them.

In fact, if they try to make me drive to Logan, which is Dante’s 10^th circle of hell, I’m going to complain to the government.

Oh wait…

mpatinki@providencejournal.com

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Lack of Global Entry in RI an insult to the state, Patinkin says