How much checking does the USA do of Citizen status at the Canadian Border? If someone walked/drove across to the USA from Canada with a valid USA Drivers License and Soc Security card, even tho there might be some immigration issues- would they be likely to check nowadays? We can assume the person is white & middle aged for this. Or is most everyone hand-waved through after they say “yes” to “are you a citizen”? No smuggling, nothing criminal.
I frequently go through the Detroit/Windsor tunnel, and yep, hand-waving ahoy. About the same when I flew to Montreal. Shady looking folk will be asked to pull over, and you should answer ‘No’ when asked if you have firewood, but it is about as porous as an international border can be, unless you count traffic delays.
Thanks- anyone else up there who crosses the border a few times a year or more?
I’ve never crossed a land border, but FYI driver’s license and SS card are NOT proof of U.S. citizenship – plenty of non-citizens have both of these items. For proof of citizenship, you need one item to verify citizenship (U.S. birth certificate, Certificate of Birth Abroad of a U.S. Citizen, or naturalization certificate) plus government-issued photo ID, and the names on both need to match (or be connected with proof of name change, a marriage certificate for example if name has been changed through marriage). A valid U.S. passport will kill two birds with one stone.
I’m sure plenty of people are waved through, but why risk being stopped and/or detained if you don’t have to?
Eva Luna, Immigration Paralegal
It also makes a difference when and where you cross. If you are coming back from a Red Sox game at Olympic Park (interleague play) at about 5:00 PM and a bazillion other people are doing the same, and you have family in the car, and you have ballpark souveniers, you get a wave-through pretty easily.
If you are coming back from a business meeting in Montreal at midnight, dressed like young techies, and the place is deserted, you will get much more intensive scrutiny.
Been there, done that.
I was on vacation in Toronto last year (right after the big power loss) with Mrs. KVS, 3 kids, and the mother-in-law. We crossed the Niagara Falls border into the U.S. at about 7 p.m. The miserable SOB on duty must have been trying to impress someone, because he let us have it for not having passports to prove the kids were ours.
So he leaned into the van to ask them if I was their father and Mrs. KVS was their mother - talking to them as if they were three years old (the youngest was 7).
“Who’s this? Is this your daddy? And is this your mommy? Did you buy lots of nice things in Canada?”
I told him we didn’t bring passports for the kids because no border guard had ever asked for them before (and we had been in Canada several times.)
To me: “You know I can drag you up to the office now and it will take 3 hours on the phone to prove that these children belong to you?”
There was one almost funny part - Mrs. KVS was mumbling and grumbling under her breath, and I had to keep hitting her leg to keep her quiet. I was afraid the idiot would arrest her just for swearing.
A friend of the family was a cop in a Detroit suburb. He told us about an officer from his department who forgot to leave his pistol at home when going to Canada and for some reason he was searched. They charged him with “invading Canada.” Nothing ever came of it with the exception of him losing his gun to the Canadian gov’t.
Pre-9/11 getting across was as easy as pie—I’ve never known anyone who had been searched, etc. Since then, I have no idea. I have a friend in the Sault I can email (I just remembered that).
I have driven into Canada several times over the last three years near Vancouver. Getting into Canada is not tough. I think I showed my passport once and was waved through once, and asked if I was a US citizen once.
Getting back into the US has requried my passport all three times. no waving through at the Peace Arch.
YMMV.
Stuff like this is why I don’t travel without Aaron’s birth certificate. All it takes is one hotshot cop (or border guard) to make our lives a living hell.
Robin
I used to cross the border weekly & commercially in my private car - for several years. There was a number hung on the wall of the office for cars and busses and it said something like 16 - or 8 or 12, and it meant that every 16th car had to be sent in for further checking of everything. I saw so many jerks who tell everybody that they “are nice” and they “just smile” and get away with anything - not so! When that number strikes, you are IT. And there are colossal jerks on both the U.S. and Canadian sides - absolutely perverse nutcases who can cause so much trouble - one seized my car and took two rolls of new kodak film in unopened little boxes and exposed the entire rolls - worthless, destroyed. It was my objecting to that which in part got the car seized for 3 hours. Finally, a charge of “Invading Canada” is just crap - typical cop talk - utter nonsense - pure ficition.
Never had any real problems ever crossing the Canadian/US border either way. Usually cross in Port Huron/Sarnia, or Detroit/Windsor if I have to be in Windsor.
Pre-911, all we ever needed was a driver’s license (“needed” meaning that which was “merely required,” not whatever the law strictly demands). However, since marrying an immigrant, we only ever have our passports, so that helps a lot. Never, ever have problems. Well, one small one coming back from Toronto once. If it really interests you, search my name with “Toronto” and “declare” here.
Mostly, the Canadians are like, “hello yankee dollar” and the Americans are like, “welcome home.”
You have a cite for that?
There was a news item about this a year or two ago - the gun was confiscated because he didn’t have the correct permit for bringing a handgun into Canada.
I lived in Vancouver and crossed over the border almost weekly.
It really depends on when, where and how you cross the border. I prefer the Truck Crossing and never had a problem. The only time I’ve been stopped has been at the Peace Arch and smaller crossings. I’ve made it across with just my driver’s license but I keep a passport on me now.
From what I’ve seen, walkers have to go in and submit identification.
Before 9/11, my husband & I crossed the border into Canada near Trail to drop off a friend. On the way up our car was searched but they didn’t check our ID. On the way back, about an hour later, hubby realized he didn’t even have his ID on him! Luckily one of the border guards was from the same town hubby was living in and after grilling him with some questions, he let us back into the US!
If you’re in the middle of an immigration process (as I am), I wouldn’t risk it.
I used to cross all the time from Washington State into BC (via Peace Arch). Years ago is was always “ok, thank you, drive though”
I was just up in Victoria BC in Feb. Going up was fine. The Canadian border guy was real nice. “So? Where ya from then? Where ya goin? How long you stayin eh? Ok then, have a nice day eh.”
Coming back was not so nice. The US border guy had a real thick accent, I couldn’t place it but I think it was Spainish (like an accent from Spain, not Mexico). He was a total ass. Both the wife an I had our drivers licenses, birth certificates, library cards, ect,… wallets full of some form of ID.
Having a strange name (my first name is really Seven) he said “are you Steven?”
I corrected him and said “Seven”.
He looked confused. “Seven? Your name is Seven?”
“Yes.”
He glared at me and returned to his little booth. He started poking around on a computer or something. After a few minutes he came back and asked where we were from, where we visited and how long we were gone. He then walked out and wrote down the plate from the car. Then back to his little booth.
About 5 minutes later he came back out and asked what we bought in BC. Then he started in on me. He asked where I was born, where I live now, how long I’ve lived there, how long I lived in my birth town before I moved, what business I had in Canada, do I know anyone in Canada, and again how long I was there and what I was bringing back. Then he asked if the car we were in was ours. After we said yes he took the serial number of the car and returned back to his guard house.
After about 10 more minutes he came back out to ask me pretty much the same questions over again. He wasn’t asking my wife anything, just me. He also was asking them like I had just done something wrong.
Personally, I was getting pissed off. I expected our car to be pulled off and searched any minute.
Of course, I didn’t tell the border guard my real business in Canada -that being looking for a place to live, work and move to. I’m sure if I told him I planned to defect to Canada I’d be there for hours.
We have to go back again in a few weeks, then again a couple months later. I’ll be bringing a passport with me next time.
This of course is 100% false. No such number exists. I crossed the border twice a week for three years and never got pulled over. If this number system actually existed, I’d have been pulled over at least once by sheer probability. Don’t like anecdotes? You want a cite? My cousin - the border guard.
I have family in Victoria BC and live in Portland. I’ve crossed the border at the Peace Arch/Truck Crossing and at the Port Angeles ferry landing several times a year since I was a wee lad. When I was young and travelling with my family, we NEVER had a border crossing that involved anything more than a few minutes of questioning, and perhaps a stern warning about documenting the citizenship of the children (me and my sister), which was always a problem going into the US because we were born in Canada and although we had the “US Citizen Born Abroad” paperwork, mom was always afraid to bring it for fear of it getting lost, and of course photocopies are not permitted.
Since I’ve grown up and started crossing the border either alone or with friends, I’ve experienced the full gamut of inspection and questioning and berating and searching and suspicious glares. Even when travelling on a passport.
In my experience, whether your searched or not at the border is based pretty much entirely on what would be termed “profiling” of your appearance and your responses to the questions asked.
I have a Canadian passport. When i lived in Vancouver some years back, i would cross the border on a semi-regular basis, usually for pleasure (visiting, shopping, etc.). I never had any problems getting into the US; they just asked if i was a Canadian citizen and what i would be doing in the US. When i answered that i was a Canadian, and that i was just visiting to go shopping or visit friends, they waved me through.
Often the biggest hassle on those trips was getting back into Canada. Not the immigration part; that was easy. No, it was Canadian Customs that you had to worry about. The exchange rate at the time meant that many people from the Vancouver area would drive across to shop in Bellingham or Seattle, and would often try to sneak a whole shitload of stuff back into Canada without paying the appropriate taxes and duties on it. If the Customs guys thought you had been on a shopping binge, your car was fairly likely to be searched.
I’ve only crossed the border once each way since 9/11, and had no problem going either way. On the way into the US from Canada, i explained that i am a student studying here on an F1 visa, and the woman just waved me through.
I’ve been up to Vancouver several times in the last few years, via Peace Arch, and have never had a problem. We get waved in (shopping, tourism) and drive right through. On the way back, we get about 1 minute of questioning, show our ID, and drive on. Of course, it helps that the last few times I have been with my cousin,with military ID. Something about that just seems to make them want to trust us. That, and the fact that we don’t match any profile. 
Never had to show anything other than driver’s license. YMMV