What is the required “enhanced screening” that we will go thru and what does it entail?

It has not yet been announced.

I’ve been wondering about this (and googling) too. From what I’ve found, it’s not exactly crystal clear but in just a few hours we should begin to get firsthand reports from those who have gone through it.

(REQUEST: if you have gone through this, please post details of your experience below so others can know what to expect).

The following is speculation, based on little bits found online, along with how things were generally handled for passengers returning from Asian countries earlier...

I’m expecting some quick and cursory process before boarding a flight from any Schengen Zone country: a quick thermal scan for your temperature. A few questions: where have you been in the past 2 weeks? how are you feeling? have you been in close contact with anyone infected with the virus or (some list of other criteria)? If you clock in at 98.6 degrees and give the right answers to the questions, I assume you get waved through and you get to board. If not, you get pulled aside for further investigation. Exactly how that’s gonna go, who knows?

Upon arrival in the US, I’d expect the same routine (at least the questions), with the added “request” that you voluntarily self-quarantine for 14 days. That bit seems particularly squishy and potentially problematic - we’ll see.

At least that’s what it sounds like the plan is. No doubt things will evolve.

As for you the OP, I think you can expect something like that, but with the potential for an extra twist: by the time of your return flight, who knows what restrictions will be in place for travel from Jordan’s, never mind the Schengen countries. There’s also a significant chance your airline may reduce their schedule resulting in you needing to take a different routing home.

You will want to track the airline situation carefully as you’re in Jordan.

There is no plan in place. That is the problem with announcing policy without a plan in place. There will be some free lancing as people try to do their best without leadership. I would guess it to be a mix bag. By the 22nd their should be some clarity so I would not worry about it till then.

My bigger concern is what happens if your are tagged by the "enhanced screening." No fly??? No entry? There is considerable law that says you cannot deny entry to a US citizen. So are you carted off to a holding area? Lots of unknowns.

I haven't seen anything official but I used to work at CBP, including as part of the national H1N1 team. Here's a guess:

I'd count on, at least, an extended questionnaire about where you went and what you did. Plus a thermometer that takes your temperature, at your forehead, without actually touching you.

Probably from there, depending on your answers and/or fever, you might have to go to secondary screening. That could include a coronavirus test.

If you test positive, they'll likely have some sort of quarantine protocol. I have no idea what that would entail? Maybe a hotel or military base, or just self-quarantine for a number of days then come back?

There are a lot of may and could statements here but that's the best idea I can give you.

....That could include a coronavirus test. ..... Then what do you do? Sit on a bench for eight hours or more waiting for the results. There is no instant coronavirus test. And that is the problem with "enhanced screening", there is little that can be done. Check for a fever is about it.

Hahahahahaha as if anyone knows

A description of the enhanced screening process was posted to the DHS website yesterday. Also within this linked announcement is the list of designated airports for incoming travelers who've been to a Schengen country (or China or Iran) within 14 days of U.S. entry. Rozebudzz, this will apply to you as you will have left the Netherlands just 8 or 9 days before arriving in New York. Fortunately for you, JFK is one of the designated entry points!

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/13/fact-sheet-dhs-notice-arrival-restrictions-china-iran-and-schengen-countries-europe

https://www.dhs.gov/news/2020/03/13/department-homeland-security-outlines-new-process-americans-returning-certain

I would think a request for self-quarantine would be useless.

I would hope that some of the quest for individual rights would cede to civic responsibility when lives are at sake. The lives you save may be your children’s grandparents. N

Yes, I hope that the Covid- 19 positive cases in my community who had recently returned from a vacation overseas (from a hot spot) self quarantined at home (or maybe they had to be hospitalized, I can't seem to tell from the health dept reports). But if they had no symptoms of being sick or only mild symptoms who know what they did? It seems people here are only serious about the virus when those severely sick or dying hit close to home. I don't yet have a sense of my community pulling together.

I also read in the paper today reports from Americans returning from abroad stating that they did not undergo much scrutiny at their U.S. airports.

Okay, so the DHS link upthread basically says, enhanced screening entails questions about travel history, current medical condition, and self quarantine at home. But only "some" will have their temperatures taken. Why not all have temperatures taken? So they are relying on just asking if the traveler feels sick? The paper today says even people getting close to our President are to now have their temperatures taken first. And some of those people may not have even traveled to a hot spot recently!

If my computer was working I would write a guideline on what self quarantine actually means and how to do so correctly. I guarantee most quarantined are not doing it correctly.

What would self-quarantine entail if the landing airport is not your home airport? Self-quarantine at home is very difficult, impossible in a remote airport. What hotel would even accept these passengers!?

Stay healthy!

Agree with Bets.

Unfortunately there is no leadership or modeling and no detailed plan. Surprise! Not. We are all in this together. Hopefully people get that and act accordingly.

The OP only wanted to know about the enhanced screening process at the airport.
What is described in the linked DHS page is all that we currently have to work with.

Iceland was smart. They have designated a hotel as a quarantine site. Be aware, the article is over a week old.

https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2020/03/06/hotel_in_reykjavik_converted_into_quarantine/

I just saw a report on CNN. They showed lines of returning passengers densely crowded together for hours waiting to be screened - exactly what you to have when some of them are potentially infected and contagious to others. The woman who was interviewed said she was in line for about 4 and a half hours, filled out a questionnaire that had 3 questions and had her temperature taken by infrared equipment. She saw no sign of why the lines were so long. The report also said that some people reported waiting in line for up to 7 hours.

Well, we landed in Jordan last nt and we’re now scheduled to depart the country Monday. Our tour was cancelled while in flight and the kingdom is stopping all flights in or out as of midnight Monday u til the end of March. So I’ll get to experience the enhanced screening sooner than I thought. We managed to get a flight out to LHR tomorrow, then on to JFK. I hope that 4-7 hours wait for a screening in JFK is an anomaly and they’re much more efficient by then. Our layover in JFK is only 4 hrs before our flight to our home airport of Charlotte.

We’re a little concerned that we’ll get stuck here in Jordan or at LHR, as more and more int’l flights are getting cancelled. Frankly, if I had to be stuck somewhere, I feel much safer here in Jordan (where there is no virus) than I would be in London or New York. When we deplaned last nt in Amman, everyone had their temps taken and there were several doctors standing around to double check. And the lines went quickly with no large groups clumped together. It was very efficiently done.

We always intended to self quarantine after this trip.

Indeed.

Incredible.

News reports that some people didn't even have their temperature taken.

And does it matter? The asymptomatic period is up to 5 days.

Maybe. Do you imagine all those thousands of folks today are coming home after their 3 or 4 day vacation in Europe?

For those of you wanting to read personal experiences with enhanced screening, please see my report on my return yesterday from a trip to Poland. It’s filed in the General Europe section of the forum.

So I am actually writing this on the plane during my last leg of a trip from Kathmandu via Doha (Qatar) and Boston to Minnesota. JFK may be different, but here is what I experienced over the last 24 hours.

In Doha everyone on the plane was given a form titled “United State Traveler Health Declaration”. It asked if we had traveled to any of the Schengen countries, China, South Korea, Iran or Italy over the past 14 days. It also asked if we had been in contact with anyone known to be infected over the last 14 days. Finally it asked if, during the past 24 hours, we had experienced any of the three main symptoms: fever, cough, and difficulty breathing. We were told this form would be collected by a screener in the USA. At the bottom of the form was a section for the screener to fill out asking for measured temperature, signs of any symptoms, and a place to check “released” or “referred for public health assessment.” No mention of any testing (they wouldn’t have enough tests anyway.) And no mention of self-quarantine.

So everybody dutifully filled out the form and had it in hand when we approached immigration where the lines WERE long and slow. I have Global Entry and even that was slow - it took me about 30-45 minutes to clear it. BUT - nobody asked for my form! (And they certainly didn’t take temps.) When I made it up to the front of the line, the immigration officer just asked me where I had been and whether I had passed through Europe. And off I went.

Now, maybe the officers were aware that lines had gotten out of hand the previous day at some locations and were speeding things along. And maybe they would have asked more questions if I had been in Europe or was hacking up a storm. But I think that the inconsistency is just a symptom of what happens when a policy is announced without consulting the parties affected (airlines, immigration and customs authorities, European officials, etc., etc.) and without a plan. The fact that my experience and Patricia’s experience (see above) were so different would support this view.

My experience at Detroit today was fast and efficient. First border control, next CDC where everyone's temp was taken, finally face-to-face questions. We have Global Entry. The wait to see the officer after the kiosk was ten minutes.

Friends, like I've said, rules without enforcement are suggestions. If I'm filling out such a form I'll write whatever necessary to get home to my bed. Sorry, but just being honest.

The days of travel bans are past being useful. It's all about community spread at this point.

Mike - how right you are.

Israel has not barred people from entering - but everyone entering the country must self-quarantine for 14 days. It's assumed that all returning citizens and permanent residents have a place to do that. All others must show proof that they have a residential address where they can isolate themselves.

I went to a small (2 clerk) post office yesterday (to mail in my 1040 :-) and they were only serving one customer at a time, insisting that all others wait outside.

It's an eerie time here, unlike any crisis we've been through before - terror attacks, wars . . .

Travel bans are highly useful. It is about community spread. Low count regions vs hot zones. Nice tight congested airports. Packed little tubes carrying 200-350 new “community” members at a time to continue the spread. But here we have them a wee bit too late.

We arrived at SFO from Lisbon shortly after midnight via Logan airport in Boston. As described in previous posts, on the plane we were each given a form asking if we had been in certain countries and Schengen, if we were in contact with anyone with the virus, if we had a fever or cough. Many on the plane didn't know what Schengen was so not sure their information was accurate. We were released from the plane in groups of 10, walked past someone with a laser(?) thermometer to tables with about six health workers who took our forms, asked the same questions, and gave us oral and printed directions to self quarantine, take our temperature daily for a week, and call our doctor if we got a fever of 100.4.

The process was efficient and quick. Don't know how it is in other airports but it seems to be working well there. Of course, if your seat is in the very back of a full plane you might think differently but our plane was half empty.

I entered the US through SFO about 18 hours ago (on Monday 3/17 afternoon). Here's how it went for us.

We were flying from Istanbul to San Francisco (nonstop) on Turkish Airlines.

There are currently no restrictions on travel to or from Turkey that have been imposed by the US government (Turkey is not on the list of "Schengen+" European countries recently restricted). Likewise, there are no restrictions imposed by the Turkish government on flights to/from the USA. In the past few days Turkey has banned flights to most European countries, so getting home to the US from Turkey has become harder, with dwindling ways to accomplish that, due to all the restrictions combined with airlines making massive cuts to their schedules - so flight availability is a second limiting factor.

Note that we had been out of the US for almost exactly 14 days (the "14 day" period is used to determine lots of things); we were in Turkey for about 13 days. Exactly how long we were away for (and "where we were") depends on how you calculate it (departure date and time versus arrival date and time); for most folks the calculation was probably simpler. Although our return flight was a nonstop from Turkey to the US, our outbound flight had a layover in Paris, which added complexity to our case from a bureaucratic standpoint. Although we never technically entered France (no passport stamp, no formal entry to Schengen), we did spend a few hours in the airport lounge at CDG (about 14 days before we returned home, depending on the hour chosen to measure it), which was enough to have us lumped in with people who had been in any Schengen country. So I assume our experience would hold for anyone arriving at SFO from anywhere in Europe (even though we flew in from a non-restricted country).

We were pre-screened in Istanbul before we were allowed to check-in for our flight (separate from the check-in desk). Screening was done by some contract agent; signage indicated it was required for all flights to USA, Canada, and the UK. Agent asked us what I call "the standard questions":

• Where have you been the past 14 days?
• How are you feeling?
• Do you have any of the following symptoms: Fever, difficulty breathing, cough, shortness of breath?
• Have you been in contact with anyone who is infected?

We showed passports, answered the questions, answers were entered into a computer, we were directed to the normal check-in desk. We checked in, everything after that was routine (at least routine for Istanbul, AFAICT - they have multiple security and other checks as you progress through the airport - we must have gone through at least 6 or 7 different checks from curbside to getting on the plane).

Our flight was uneventful, and actually quite nice, except for a drunk passenger who snuck into business class and then after takeoff got into a tussle with the flight crew after they caught him surreptitiously videoing members of the crew - he came within an inch of being handcuffed on the plane (they had the plastic handcuffs out, he was being physically restrained by several large male crew members, they were reading him the riot act informing him of the fines of tens of thousands of dollars if the captain had to divert or return to Istanbul. He was yelling they had insulted him and had no right to touch his phone, crew insisted he delete his videos and photos of the crew. He did delete them and things de-escalated, but upon exiting the plane he apparently tried to video them again, there was another tussle and I think he was arrested after we landed in SFO - crew was restraining him and yelling "get the police!" as we exited the plane; this idiot apparently wanted to be famous on YouTube or twitter...

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Note to passengers hungry for social media attention: you really have no right to do whatever you want on a flight. The captain (pilot) has broad authority to do pretty much anything he deems necessary to ensure the safety of the flight, and that covers everything, including passenger behavior. Likewise, passengers are required to follow the instructions of flight crew members, even if you think what they're telling you is stupid or unfair. That applies anywhere. It probably applies even more in a place like Turkey, which is not exactly known as a haven of civil liberties. This guy was begging for a smackdown. Don't be that guy.

Back to the entry experience.

We were not given a form to fill out on the plane (although in contrast, we WERE given a medical form to fill out on our inbound flight from Paris to Istanbul 2 weeks before, required by the Turkish government - go figure).

There were no lines at all at SFO - none - unlike the nightmares reported the previous day at DFW, ORD and elsewhere. No waiting at all for us at SFO, 5-6 pm on Monday.

We have Global Entry. We both went through the kiosk, and received the GE receipt with the big "X" across it. Every passenger got the X (I asked and was told yes, everybody gets the X while the extra screening is in effect). The CBP agent took our passports, or GE receipts, and asked us the standard questions - same as above, with a few extras: where in Turkey did you go (I gave a list of cities and towns, which I'd imagine most people have never heard of). I rattled off the list of places we went. He asked if we had crossed any land borders from Turkey. No, sir. (Turkey has for some time been a sensitive place to travel through: proximity with Syria has made it a transit point for all sorts of trouble, and you generally can expect to get extra security attention after coming from there).

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I learned a few things long ago: when dealing with a police officer, lawyer, or other officials who have power over you, answer their questions directly, truthfully, and completely, without volunteering any extra details but without hiding anything. Jack Webb-style, "just the facts, ma'am."

He asked if we had "been to Europe in the past 2 weeks." I said, "I don't think so, but that depends on how you measure the time and your definition of Europe." I pointed out that Istanbul straddles the divide between (what most people call) Europe and Asia, while we were there, we were on the European side of the city. I said that AFAIK Turkey is not on the list of restricted countries, and we had not been in the Schengen zone...although our flight TO Turkey about 2 weeks ago did have a short layover in Paris. I added that we never left the Paris airport, and technically never entered the Schengen zone (no passport stamp), we were just in an airport lounge for a few hours between flights. He asked "did you step off the plane?" Yes, we did. He said, well, yeah, technically you never entered France, but for purposes of this screening, stepping off the plane is what counts. So we were considered to have been in the Schengen countries. I shrugged, said OK I understand, the rules is the rules, no problem. He apologized, agreed that in our case it was a very close call, then escorted us to secondary screening, handed us off to a medical exam screener.

Medical screener repeated some of the same stuff: he looked through every page of our passport carefully, checking stamps (we have a lot of them, this took several minutes), comparing them to info his computer screen (they know where you've been so be honest). He asked us the standard questions, noting our answers on a paper form. He also collected contact info for us. He took our temperatures using a non-contact thermal device (infrared I believe); we both clocked in at 98.0. Gave us a booklet from the CDC with info on the virus, how to self-monitor (take your temp 2X a day) and avoid going out ("self quarantine") for 2 weeks. We chatted and told him about where we were, etc. I shared that we had been taking our temperature several times a day while we were away, washing hands frequently, using hand sanitizer, wiping down surfaces to disinfect, etc., the usual stuff. He said that we were really an extreme edge case, pretty low risk, but we were requested to self-quarantine for 2 weeks after we got home. I shared that home was Seattle. He said yeah. That interview was probably 10-15 minutes, professional but relaxed.

He took us to a third screening, handed our passports, forms and other paperwork to a different CPD agent. She entered all that into a computer, took about 10 minutes staring at her screen, then gave us our passports and told us we were free to go. We did.

Overall, I was impressed. The screening seemed appropriate, well-run, everyone acted professional, serious but courteous. There were no long lines, no long waits, no place where people where packed together in a "petri dish" like media reports of DFW and ORD. I thought they were doing it about as well as one could expect.

We made our connecting flight home to Seattle, got home around midnight, then went out for groceries (the store was not crowded, the store had pretty much everything we would have expected, even plenty of toilet paper, which we didn't need). It was good to be home.

I hope this helps anyone wondering about what to expect upon returning to the US - at least via SFO. Can't promise your experience will match ours, but in our case I think the process is working about as well as it could be.

Good luck and stay well.