Ok, So I may have a little bitch or complaint about how Canada handles their Border/Immigration Laws! I will explain my Story! I am going on Vacation to Michigan from NH, and decide that it is quicker to cut through the bottom part of Canada so I can cut off about three hours time by doing so. I have no passport, so I brought my Birth certificate and my SSN Card and my photo ID (drivers License), to the Border as I enter Canada. The guy asks shitload of questions, like how many times have I ever traveled to Canada and what is my purpose of traveling to Canada and so forth…I let them know I have never been to Canada and my purpose was to cut through Canada because it is quicker for me to do this as my travel plans show this to be the quickest route on my trip…
They fill out this yellow piece of paper and tell me to drive to the immigration office. I get there and a woman then asks me in an intimidating voice and not very nicely as a matter of fact, If I have ever been arrested in the US. Before I could answer she says to me that I better not lie to her because she is going to check anyway and I better tell her the truth!
Wow! What a bitch! I said I had a DWI in 1993 and was arrested. I Was then waiting for a few minutes when she handed me a piece of paper that said I was not able to enter the country for 15 years. I am BANNED from Canada for 15 years? For a friggin’ DWI in the US? Whats the deal? She actually would not explain why I could not enter but said that there was a police inquiree on record and that was written on the bottom of the paper she gave me, when I was told that I had to exit the country immediately. I was told that I had to sign this paper saying that I was going to voluntarily leave the country.
What I want to know is what do the Border Patrol ask the Canadian people when they try to enter the US? If they get a DWI in their country, can they enter the US? What are the laws governing Canadians entering the US? Are we as strict as the Canadians are when it comes to checking records of the people entering the US and if not why? Why don’t we have a checkpoint on the otherside of the canadian border checking the Canadians before they enter our country? My family helped build half of that friggin’ country and I can’t even go there? What gives? I would love to turn most all Canadians away from the US just because of a little arrest record or something like a DWI and see how they like being turned away from the freedoms that they can’t get in Canada.
Do I have to wait 15 years from that last DWI conviction? or how does this work? They would not explain anything to me about what the reason was except that there was something on my record preventing me from entering their friggin country. Could I have refused to sign this paper and not voluntarily left the country? And if so What would be the consequences?
Anyone know the reason for all this? And does anyone have a list of Canadian immigration laws explaining reasons for being banned from that country?
What is this? I suggest you contact the US Department of State and raise a big stink. You obviously got singled out. I’ve never undergone this sort of treatment when I entered Canada, and I have done so with no more identification than a picture ID–and that was but a year and a half ago.
In my pre-21 days, my friends and I would go to Windsor quite often to partake in the looser drinking laws.
The border patrol guys sometimes pick vehicles out at random to “tag,” or they have a formula of “tagging” every Xth car, or they’ll “tag” a vehicle/driver that looks suspicious.
Basically, you got tagged. It sucks, but their country, their rules. If they don’t want you, I think you’re out of luck.
Happy
It depends what kind of mood the border guard is in. I’ve always been waved through after answering a few questions (and not showing ANY ID!) but others, especially if you don’t have a passport will drill you and try to make you trip up. You just got bum luck by getting one of those.
To answer your question though, IIRC, yes. If you are convicted of a criminal offense in Canada the US can bar you from entry as well. If you think you had a “mean bitch” immigration officer, you’ve got to meet some of the American officers. I haven’t had any personal problems but I actually know of people put in holding cells while they wait. We don’t have a monopoly on them by any means!
As a sovreign nation, we reserve the right to let in whom we chose. We are under no obligation to do so. Would you let me into your house without trying to get to know me a little?
You are an inadmissible persion to Canada as someone with a DWI conviction. You can apply for temporary relief, however you need to do that before you show up to the border. I am not sure if there is any way to have the ban lifted after it has been applied. I do know that U.S. Border Patrol has banned Canadians from entering the U.S. permanently, and there is no appeals process.
Try being a Canadian citizen of Afgani/Iraqi/Irani/Pakistani birth trying to enter the U.S. post 9/11…
I crossed the border many, many times when my wife and I were dating (she lived in Buffalo, NY). My experiences with the border patrol were generally positive. Only once was I “harrassed” slightly crossing into the U.S. But hey - it is your/their country.
syjstr, the US border is much worse than any other I have seen in the way they treat foreigners and Canadians have plenty of horror stories so it could be that Canada is tightening up with Americans just to give them some of their own medicine. The USA has been complaining Canadian borders were too open. Well, I guess they’re tightening them up.
I agree with bernse. My uncle had to travel to the states for work (all the paper work was done for him to do this) but when he got to the border he was turned away because he was arrested for pot possession in 1972!
It took him and his company about $10k in lawyers fee’s to “clean” his record up. I have heard of the same thing happening for other offenses as well.
I’ve been to 24 different countries and in my experiences have found that the USA is by far the worst. In one circumstance, while returning to the States from the UK, the immigration guy asked us to “step this way” for a search right after he found out my father was born in Iran. We have Aussie passports! We’re not even Iranian! Coincidence, maybe. But it didn’t happen to the people in front or behind us. He also asked us about arrests. Then he went into this series of questions about my parent’s jobs. "What are you professor of, " “University or Community College,” “What do you teach,” “What is your exact address,” “Why did you move here from Australia,” “Which university,” etc. Then my mother, same speil. Then me! I’m a friggin’ high school student! And rude? He yelled at us because we heard ‘outside the US’ and ‘in the US.’ And that wasn’t the only time he yelled. Anyway, what ever.
Now for some contrast, try getting into Ireland. “What is your business in Ireland?”, “How long?” “Welcome to Ireland”
We have employees in my company who we can’t send into the USA for fear of their safety. One of our guys - a perfectly nice guy and a Canadian citizen - was roughed up and interrogated for hours because he looks Arabic. Now we can’t send any of our people with Arabic, Iranian etc. descent, and we have to be extra careful about anyone who even looks Indian or Chinese.
I’m sorry you couldn’t come in, pal, but we get the same shit ten times over trying to visit your country. It’s an obscure rule, but had you looked it up you could have avoided getting treated like that.
Unusually short stays in a country almost always makes border/immigration official suspicious. We had to go throught the same process when we came back from the U.S. They asked us “how long were you away?” we answered truthfully “about three hours” (my father is buried in the U.S. and we went to the cemetery to sort out grave stone business). Short stays can mean smuggling, so we got the third degree and my car was searched thoroughly.
The same applies for Canadians travelling to the U.S. If you ever admit to a felony conviction, you can be barred for life, right there on the spot with no recourse. A celebrated case involved a student, a Canadian, who was returning to his U.S. university after visiting his parents for Christmas in Canada. While crossing back to the U.S. to go back to school they asked “when is the last time you smoked pot?” he answered “five years ago.” He was banned for life.
Lawyers jumped into it because he had no convictions for anything and because his academic career was to be ruined forever. Dunno what came of it. I never saw a follow-up to the initial news story.
So it goes both ways. I usually find the U.S officials much more difficult and rude, but when you get a difficult Canadian official it takes a whole lot longer to deal with. (I’m a dual citizen and go back and forth plenty).
In Canada, I believe it is now legal to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. If a Canadian has smoked marijuana legally and attempts to enter the USA, will he/she still be banned for smoking before?
It is harder to get into the states than Canada. If you have a record in Canada, and receive a pardon from the same government that gave you the record, the US will recognize the crime, not the pardon, and you have to pay a truck load of money to apply to get in, no matter how long ago the crime was. Not only that, but my in-laws received a US visa for ten years, after going to the US embassy for a day or two, then when they went to cross, they had to pay a visiting fee on top of the visa.
This sounds odd. In general, the U.S. guys have, traditionally, been much worse jerks (although the Canadians occasionally get a paperwork hair up their butt that can be almost as much trouble), but I have never heard of a “visiting fee.”
If I want to vacation in Mexico, I’ve got to get a direct flight, because a few years ago I was found in possession of a couple grams of the demon weed marihuana, pled guilty, given a suspended sentence, (basically politely asked not to do it again,) so your government considers me too much of an undesirable to even layover in LAX, much less visit my friends and family in California and Maine. After an interval, a pardon is very easy to obtain for such a trivial offence, so it doesn’t even offer any serious impediment at home-- but the US is under no obligation to recognize pardons, and they don’t. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance, and thems the breaks.
No doubt they consider me too high of a risk, and think that allowing me into your country might increase the traffic of BC pot southward. Likewise, the Canadian government doesn’t want to take the chance of you getting hosed on our high-test beer and getting out on the roads. It doesn’t matter if the reality of the situation is that neither you or I pose any credible threat to each other’s respective population, and that anyone who really knows us would back us up on that, honest! It’s their prerogative to err on the side of caution, and there’s really not a lot of point in getting worked up about it.
Yup, every visitor entering the US with a visa needs to pay, IIRC, $15 US at the port of entry. The entry info. form is then stapled into their passport and I think valid for 3 months. If that piece of paper is missing when a person reenters the US, even if it’s within the 3-month period of the previous visit, they have to pay again.
Frankly, US immigration officers and security are a pain to go through. They are granted broad discetionary powers and rude, most of the time, to boot. It is now a chore to visit the US and I avoid it if I possibly could. Most of my friends have also done so. All of us hold Canadian passports which the US apparently no longer respects. Since none of us is Muslim or look “Arab”, I can only guess at how they are now treated.
