Not my experience the last time I entered. I travelled with a friend for whom it was his first time visiting the US. He was fingerprinted, I wasn’t (I was fingerprinted a while ago on one of my previous trips.)

I have gotten fingerprinted every time i arrive, before i got a green card and after i got a green card. Not sure if its related to something else, country of origin or country im traveling from etc.

Same here, went in 2019, got fingerprinted, and went again in 2021 and 2025, and they didn't even care about my ESTA, they just waved me through.

The TSA agent asked me the usual questions about where I was staying, how long I was staying, I replied, and despite having printed just about everything out, he just waved me through.

The closest I got was a "random inspection" in an airport, and the TSA agents asked for our passports and to go through our luggage, but as soon as we flashed our Danish passports they lost all interest and just waved us through.

The point of taking biometics is they can check if the same person is travelling on the same passport each subsequent visit.

Sometimes they rely on just image matching, and sometimes they ask for an additional finger scan ( but not normally all fingers of all hands like first registration ).

So perhaps if you have a generic looking face, or have changed your appearance since the first visit you are more likely to be fingerprinted.

What is the point of them taking the fingerprints at all, if they don't verify them on entry?