How My Eczema Impacted My Family's Travel Program Interview

When my family applied for our NEXUS the Trusted Traveler Program (expedited travel between Canada and the US) to make traveling easier and quicker, never in a million years did I think that my eczema would have an impact on my approval. Allow me to share a bit of my experience.

There’s a two-step process for the interview. The first interview is a schedule appointment in Canada where they verify documents, the second one happens once you cross the border., into the US. If the appointment is done at the airport, you can only have the second part of the interview when you have flight booked and have cleared security and customs. A stressful situation, but not much that we can do about it.

How did my skin make the process more challenging?

The day arrived when my family had a trip booked to fly to the US. We got to the airport and with plenty of time close to 3 hours before our flight, so that we could complete our NEXUS interview. We waited in the NEXUS waiting area for our turn. All this time, I was unaware that the state of my skin was going to throw us a curveball.

When it was my turn, we went through all the interview questions, I provided the necessary documents, things were looking good. Then she said the f word - fingerprints. The blood rushed from my face! I began to feel a bit nervous; I was concerned whether I would pass this part. No, I do not have any criminal record, unless having extremely dry skin is considered a crime! I followed the agents prompts, placed my fingers down on the screen, no luck! She said rub your fingers on your forehead, to get some of the body oils from your forehead onto your fingertips. It didn’t help. Then I was offered hand sanitizer, I am not sure how that was going to help me with dry and chapped fingers. She then asked me, “Do you have lotion?” Thankfully, I always travel with my mini 3oz or smaller bottle of CeraVe cream!

Did the lotion help?

I applied a generous amount of lotion on my hands. As you can imagine, I was beginning to feel nervous - we had a flight to catch and the kids were starting to lose patience sitting around waiting. I made another attempt to take my fingerprints, but it was not recognizing anything. I repeated this about 4 more times, the system kept rejecting the scans. At this point, we had less than 30 mins to our flight, and even I was getting frustrated.

What could I do?

We decided to pause my interview, and proceed to interview the rest of the family, the kids also had a bit of trouble with their fingerprint scans and made some comment about if it doesn’t work, they can try for an exemption.

The agent then asked me what I wanted to do, we were about 10 minutes to boarding time. I asked perhaps they could submit an exception for me because of my circumstances. The agent was not very sympathetic or understanding. I chose to leave the interview with the hopes that she would talk to her supervisor.

What impact would this have on my family?

We left the interview not knowing what the outcome would be and felt very discouraged by this whole ordeal.

If I was declined, I would potentially wait months or years (as we did in the case with it first application) pay the fee, go through the interview process. All of that with not idea whether I would be approved or not. If I was not approved, that would really impact how our family future travels. When traveling by car, you can only use the NEXUS lane if all the passengers have NEXUS card.

This is an example of how the entire family is impacted by just one family member living with atopic dermatitis.