I've been watching this forum for about a month, trying to judge when my CHL will be complete based on the experience of others. By my reckoning, I'm guessing I may hear something by the end of the month.
I'm a little worried about snags in my CHL though. I was stuck on the terror watch list for more than two years because of a last-minute, very brief trip to the Lower Rio Grande Valley in January 2006. The arrangements were made the morning of the flight by the travel agent at our firm. I had to fly down, rent a car, hand-deliver some documents to the City Hall of McAllen, drive back to the airport (I put exactly one mile on the rental car), and fly back out 90 minutes later.
On the way back to the security gates after returning the rental car, I was stopped by an airport security officer, a police officer, and another person (who did not identify themselves) who had my photo and called me by name. They wanted to know the purpose of my trip. Before I thought about it, I said that I was acting as a courier (which is apparently a bad thing to say at an airport four miles from the Mexican border).
They decided to go through my carry on case very carefully (all I had was a newspaper and my iPod) and spent a lot of time examining and X-raying my shoes (size 15) and my coat. I was afraid they were going to break out the latex gloves.
After a few minutes of that, they apparently decided I didn't have anything they needed to worry about and let me go on my way. But after that time, for the next two years or so, I was on the terror watch list and had "special treatment" every time I went to the airport.
I guess we'll see if that affects things.
