My teenage kids live with their mother in Toronto and I live in the NYC-area. Historically, they spend their summers and Christmas breaks with me. During the school year, I either visit them or they come here, about every 5-6 weeks. They are old enough to fly on their own now.
While the border is closed to non-essential travel, I’m wondering if there is an appeal system to allow travel for family purposes. Optimally, since their schooling is now remote, I’d like to have them stay here with me. I have much more room for them versus their relatively small place with their mother in Toronto. And since I’m working from home anyway, it would be an easy transition for them once here. Also, they are old enough, and often do, stay at home by themselves. We’ve all been sheltering in place and practicing social-distancing for well over a month now.
If the answer is that this is all still “non-essential”, I still would like to understand what I might do in the case of emergency. While they have plenty of family support there, there could be a situation in which they’d need me to be with them. I’ve googled these questions but can’t quite find an answer.
What kind of emergency are you imagining whereby you NEED to be by them? ( I’m pretty sure they’re gonna ask you this question. )
Their answer could well be, ‘we will deal with emergency cases, as they arise.’
But who can know for sure? Make an inquiry and see what they say, is really all you can do, I think.
Be prepared they may be overwhelmed dealing with those currently amidst an actual emergency, and it could take time for a response!
Right, the only real emergency would be if something happened to my ex-. While a very low probability, it’s still a slight concern. I guess I’m not even sure who to ask, as it would likely need approval from the US and Canada governments.
Even the official word on this is a little unclear. “Non essential” travel is defined as “tourism and recreational” which includes “sightseeing, recreation, gambling, or attending cultural events” It seems pretty much all business travel remains legal, as well as travel related to “Health, medical care, and safety and security.”
Your particular situation does not easily fit into these categories. Is there a formal custody arrangement in place specifying the necessity of the 5-6 week visits?
I agree that a friendly arrangement is clearly a good thing 99.9% of the time.
You could get your wife to write something up I guess. I suspect, though, that before summer the border will reopen. By July the pressure to let up on the lockdown will have been overwhelming.
About 10 years ago a friend took his daughter to Canada for vacation and he got a letter from her mother that it was OK. (they were never married and never lived together and the mother had primary custody) I think the letter was notarized too.
Current rules for Americans with family in Canada: We can enter into Canada if they self-quarantine for 14 days, and they must stay at least 15 days. My daughter and her husband live in BC, so it’s good to know we could manage to get there if needed. The quarantine time sucks, but we’d be able to get in. And my daughter assures me we could get a GREAT deal on an Air BnB to stay cheaply for 6 months, no mean feat in Vancouver.
I haven’t been able to work out what “border closure” means in this case. The Canadian border is closed to foreign entry, that’s clear, but I haven’t found any place that says that the border is closed for exiting, or any place that tells you how the border crossing are actually operating (like, have they simply locked the gates and gone home?)
Nor anything concrete about the border being closed on the American side: the two side have agreed that the border is closed, but that could mean simply the Americans acknowledging that the Canadians are preventing entry. Americans are generally allowed to enter America, but if border posts are actually closed then you have to wait or go to a different entry point.
The proclamations do not apply to U.S. citizens, or to any alien who is: … …
a child, foster child, or ward of a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident
My wife is from Newfoundland. From time to time she’ll take the kids and go up to visit her family. I go too, pretty often, but sometimes I can’t (she’s self-employed, has more flexibility than I do).
So I write this letter, authorizing her to travel out of the US with the children, specifying where they’ll be and how long they’ll be there. I have it notarized.
It’s sensible – it’s not unheard of in nasty divorce cases and custody battles for one parent to grab the kids and take them out of the country, somewhere beyond the reach of US state courts.
Isn’t there something called the Hague Convention that governs this kind of thing? That sounds vaguely familar.
My wife and kids are up there right now. We were planning for them spend a month (at least) in NL this summary anyway, before all this. I’d come up for a week, maybe two trips.
Now, well, everything is complicated. I want to see them, obviously, and spouses are permitted to travel into Canada from the US, but I’d have to quarantine for two weeks (I’m not sure whether that’s a national or provincial requirement). And fly, which really doesn’t seem like a good idea these days.
Quarantine is a national requirement for people coming into Canada, with exceptions for flight crews, truckers, military, etc. In addition, the Maritime provinces have a regional bubble with anyone coming in from the other provinces requiring to quarantine.