Well, I just got back from a two-week trip to Ontario and Quebec, which was great fun except for the grilling I got from Immigration at the airport in Toronto. Apparently, they didn’t like the fact that I said I was a student and was traveling this late in September, despite the fact that I had a satisfactory explanation (grad student, already finished all my coursework).
The first guy asked me what my dissertation topic was (!) and waved me into another room where another immigration man asked me all sorts of things – where was I studying, what was my dissertation topic (again), what my travel plans were, where I was staying, who I was going to meet in Canada (not “if” I was going to meet anybody – WHO.) I told him I wasn’t going to meet anybody. Some time later, after more questions, he asked if I was sure I wasn’t going to meet any other Americans. (This wasn’t the only question he repeated – I had the sense he was trying to trip me up.) He also asked if I had any money and made me show him my credit and debit cards, and finally asked what I knew about Montreal, my first destination. (By this point, the adrenaline rush had pretty much turned my brain to mush, so I stammered that I didn’t know very much about Montreal, and he didn’t ask any more questions.)
So at last he stamped my passport (on the very last page) and wrote something like this at the bottom of the stamp:
V-----030?2002 (The mystery character looks like a C or a lower-case e, but I’m thinking it might be a dyslexic 9 and I had to be out by the 30th of September? At least, that’s the only sense I can make of it.)
Does anybody know for sure what this stamp means?
If I’m right about what it means, is it common practice for immigration officials to limit your stay without informing you, or was this guy being particularly nasty? (It seems to me that I could easily have not noticed what he had written and innocently decided to extend my stay.)
Am I likely to have trouble entering Canada, or other countries, in the future when other officials see this stamp? (The passport doesn’t expire for three years, and there’s a fairly good chance I’ll want to return to Canada before then, and almost a 100% chance I’ll want to go somewhere out of the U.S., so this is worrying me a fair bit.)
(BTW, other than that, Canada was great, and thanks again to everybody who posted in my earlier thread.)
The Canada Customs people at the airports and elsewhere are on a “job action” and are deliberately slowing things down by interrogating many, many people who would have normally sailed through.
Unless the other country is really, really super-paranoid about you and puts you through “The Process” again, the endorsement on the back isn’t going to mean anything. Of course, if they decide to put you through “The Process”, they will pick on anything and everything, since, of course, they can.
However. You if you are concerned about it, you should make absolutely certain that your passport doesn’t get “lost”, or accidentally set on fire, or chewed by the dog/cat/ferret/wallaby, or sent through the washing machine on accident about 17 times - such that you have to apply for your renewal early. That would be a darn shame.
I had a tough time with Canadian Immigration last year.
I had figured it was just unfortunate timing (had I known the G20 summit was to take place the same week, I’d wouldn’t have travelled in DMs and bikers leather …) plus a basic conservativeness on their part - unable to compute that someone could be travelling on buisiness but not wearing a suit. I was in there for an hour, giving the same answers to the same questions to 3 different people, having to bite my tongue, when what I really wanted to say was " Even if I was an anarchist gifted with sixth sense, given I bought this ticket months ago and the location was only announced in the last few days, surely I wouldn’t have dressed according to your stereotype of an anarchist. Unless you think I’m a very stupid anarchist?
They limited my stay to a week, which was more than I needed and coincided nicely with the summit :wally
They stapled something inside my passport and that of my boss, who was travelling with me (no leather jacket but a suspicious number of ear piercings).
We’ve both travelled since with no trouble, though neither of us has been back to Canada - after that welcome, it would have to be a very necessary trip. A shame, 'cos I would have liked to be able to see more of the place.
Welcome to Canada. Our customs officials are warped and twisted people who beat up Fire Chiefs returning to their home city when they’re not playing “let’s act out 1850s family values on incoming book shipments.”
Because I had a passport. Is there some advantage to traveling to Canada without a passport when it’s much simpler to travel with one?
I’m inclined to agree with Sir Doris on the “basic conservatism” part – in my case, the second immigration official seemed convinced that No Respectable Young Lady would be traveling without a chaperone or a set itinerary and staying in youth hostels. (Although I met dozens of young Australian women who were doing exactly the same thing, so I don’t know why this is such a novel concept.)
Thanks for the answers, everybody; I’m slightly less worried now.
The last time I was in Canada was about 10 years ago. I drove across the border in Alberta. I showed my Va drivers license and the only problem I recall was the girl in the drive through booth asked me 4 or 5 times if I had any handguns (She said,“Handguns are illegal in Canada.” after each time she asked. I felt so bad about not having any guns that I asked if my buck knife was okay.) I drove for 3 days to BC and crossed into Washington state. No problems. No guff. Except that black bear I almost hit with the honda.
If it makes you (and Canada) feel any better, in my experience border-crossings everywhere are events of a very random nature. The treatment you are given depends very much on the mood and whims of the officers you happen to encounter. On my last trip to Canada, the Canadians didn’t bother me and my German wife so much as when we reentered the States. That’s when the rude, but thankfully not prolonged treatment started:
Official: “Are you planning to take your wife back with you when you go back to Germany?”
Why does Canada seem to have so many high-profile labor disruptions, compared with the US? There was the garbage strike in Toronto earlier this year, the serious threat of a transit strike, and a bunch of others.