Same experience, though I wasn't coming back from Europe. Damn'ed if I can remember which country it was now. It was easily in the past 2 years so I'm thinking it was either coming back from Cancun, Antiqua, Barbados, Belize, Honduras, Curasao or Turks & Caicos.
Same for us returning from Scotland and Italy: We passed through customs at EWR so quickly that I thought we had missed a step.
FYI: I recently flew LGA to DEN. At the Terminal B Pre✓ Security, TSA took a photo of my face and then AI apparently, compared it to my ID photo (a US Passport). There was a sign that stated that the photo is deleted within 30 min. I understand that DEN just opened as new security check point that uses the same technology.