The Border Strikes Again

This week, when crossing the border into the U.S., I was given a printed flyer advising me that in the fall I would receive a new and improved Nexus card (the famous ‘trusted traveller’ card that homeland security might give you if they feel like it). In order to receive this card, they tell me, I must ‘update or confirm’ my mailing address by mid-August. Okay. I’m okay with that. Apparently Canadians in the Nexus program will not get the new and improved card because when I cross into Canada, the border guard do not provide me with a similar copy of this request.

A few days later, I again crossed the border into the U.S. and am offered the original printed form, but now with a second sheet…not printed by a commercial printer but printed off a local computer printer. It purports to give me more instructions about how to update or confirm my mailing address. The very nature of this piece of paper gave me some cause for concern. It says this:

“getNEXUS.COM
1. Apply for NEXUS online
2. PRINT—Prior to LOGGIN {LOGGIN?????] onto GOES
Step by Step Instructions for Applying Online for NEXUS and SENTRI
3. Register in English
4. Next
5. START—GOES user registration”

I’d not give those five steps a stellar grade as instructions. But who knows, maybe it’s going to be easier than I think. So I go, as the original printed form advises me, to the “Global Online Enrollment System” website, where I am required to register as a GOES user, even though I already have a NEXUS card. The security requirements of the password are fairly onerous since they require me to have a number in the first place of the password. I have a stable of passwords that I use, but none of them has a number in the first slot, so I have to add yet another password to the stable. If I kept racehorses in this stable, I would be rich in experiences, but probably poor in earnings. Then, I have to pick five of eight security questions, to only two of which I would be remotely confident of the answers, which means they will also have to be recorded in that place where no one but I can ever find them, and maybe not me either. More repetition of providing names (including ‘Maternal Name’: What is my maternal name? What is my mother’s last name? My mother’s married name? My mother’s maiden name? Not a clue how to answer that, so I guess the last one and keep going, only to find, later, that the correct answer was my mother’s married name, which they already seem to know since it has been filled in on the blank 'Mother's Maiden Name'). FinallyI push ‘next’, and there I am registered as a GOES user, which means I’ve already gone through Step #5 above, but have not yet confirmed my mailing address. Nor, am I able to find anywhere that that could happen, anywhere that they are interested in having me do any changing of information or confirming of it either.

So I try the second option on the original printed material they gave me and go not to the GOES website but to the NEXUS website. The NEXUS website wants to know the secret name that the GOES website has just given me, a name no human could ever remember, but I must always use and I must always keep it very secret. Since I wrote it down on an old envelope two minutes ago, I am able to tell this to them and they log me in and offer me the following information:

“If you applied to the NEXUS program using a paper application and do not have an online account, you should register for a GOES user ID by following the instructions provided on the GOES Web site. Once you have registered, you can log in to your account to update your contact information at any time. The purpose of this simple registration process is not to submit a new application but to ensure that your mailing and e-mail address information is up-to-date.”

So, now I’m being sent back to the GOES site where I already could not find anything that would make it possible for me to confirm anything at all. Time elapsed to fail to complete this ultra-necessary procedure? Fifty minutes so far, doubtless more to come since I haven’t done it yet.

Feeling more secure? You can imagine how reassured I’m feeling. And August 15 will doubtless be here before I know it. And there will be another reason to take my NEXUS card away: I refused to confirm my mailing address, which has not changed for 14 years.