TSA, Immigration, and Customs changes at Newark Airport

Thank you Michael. I fly home through EWR in 1 1/2 weeks.

You're welcome. I should add that this was at the immigration hall in Terminal B.
Should be the same at Terminal C, but I don't have any personal experience.

I read an article recently (sorry dont have reference) that said EWR was going to be taken out of the "New York" airport grouping. It implied some impact on travelers looking at airport options and connecting flights. Maybe somebody has a better understanding of this.

edit never mind, found the link from Travel & Leisure: EWR not a NYC hub

I'm guessing this has nothing to do with TSA Pre-Check or Global Entry.

No Frank II, it doesn't. But persons interested in EWR drawn to this thread might be interested.

If this spreads more generally, though, it will slightly lower the value/advantage of Precheck/Global Entry

This means that even though the 3.4 oz rule for liquids still applies, they no longer need to be taken out of your luggage and don't need to be in zip locks.

If 3.4 oz liquids no longer need to be in Ziplocs, then has EWR eliminated the carry-on rule that limits all 3.4 oz liquids to just one quart-sized bag?

You still can only take the equivalent of a quart sized bag. The new scanners have the ability to pick out all the liquids scattered in your bag and flag to the operator anyone who exceeds a quart total.

Immigration: Landing cards and kisoks are no more. You simply head directly to the to the agents inside the booths. In my case he just glanced at passport, took my photo, and handed it back to me without stamping it.

Customs: After baggage claim, the customs checkpoint is now exactly what you would see at a European airport:

I can confirm from my experience last week that the process for non-Americans is quite similar, except that fingerprints are still taken (and that the devices for this function as poorly as ever). The customs declaration is done verbally at passport control (the agent himself laughed when he asked me if I had more than $10,000 in cash).

Philly has had these scanners for a while and I have never had my bag flagged for having too much liquid even though I travel with about 2 quart sized bags worth of them. From my anecdotal evidence, TSA has been extremely lax the last few years about liquids. I stopped putting mine in quart bags and have sometimes forgotten to take them out of my bag going through security (even when the airport doesn’t have the fancy machines) and the only time I was ever flagged was in Reykjavik. And they didn’t even pin me for having too many liquids just for not having it in a quart bag. She put my loose liquids in a ziplock and let me on my merry way.