Christmas dilemma - Please help!

[Matt2022]

First, thank you all for this great forum! You are a huge help to many.

During the height of COVID, summer of 2020, I married my longtime Canadian girlfriend here in the US. We had planned to get married that summer anyway, but COVID and the new border controls prevented us from seeing each other for 5 months until our wedding. We both live right on the border, less than 30 minutes away from each other by car. I stayed with her for 2 years and just returned back to my home in the US last month. I am retired, but I own my own home in the US, and have for 4 years.

I would very much like to visit my wife and her family for Christmas, and stay through til New Years. I am concerned that my prior long stay may foul things up for me when I seek entry back into Canada. FWIW, neither one of us has ever been in any trouble with the law in either country.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do or say at the border when I speak to the Canadian inspector? Any strategies or insights will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Matt

 

[scylla]

First, thank you all for this great forum! You are a huge help to many.

During the height of COVID, summer of 2020, I married my longtime Canadian girlfriend here in the US. We had planned to get married that summer anyway, but COVID and the new border controls prevented us from seeing each other for 5 months until our wedding. We both live right on the border, less than 30 minutes away from each other by car. I stayed with her for 2 years and just returned back to my home in the US last month. I am retired, but I own my own home in the US, and have for 4 years.

I would very much like to visit my wife and her family for Christmas, and stay through til New Years. I am concerned that my prior long stay may foul things up for me when I seek entry back into Canada. FWIW, neither one of us has ever been in any trouble with the law in either country.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I should do or say at the border when I speak to the Canadian inspector? Any strategies or insights will be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Matt

Did you continue to extend your status in Canada during your 2 year stay to keep your status in Canada legal?

 

[Ponga]

Hopefully you did maintain your status.

Since the border was open to U.S. citizens returning home it is likely not a valid reason for overstaying in Canada in the eyes of CBSA. In the eyes of you and your wife...it certainly was a valid reason.


If you did not maintain your visitor status:

With the Beyond the Border Action Plan and the Entry/Exit Program, an overstay may already be in the system.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...tins-manuals/service-delivery/entry-exit.html

Once fully implemented, entry and exit information will give the CBSA the ability to

• identify individuals who are potentially overstaying their lawful period of stay

However, footnote 1 shows this:
Overstay indicator: There will be a checkmark in the “Overstay” section that indicates if and during which trip someone overstayed their Temporary Resident visit. The Overstay Indicator feature has not yet been activated by CBSA, who lead this initiative and who collect the information. They are waiting for enough air carriers to be on-boarded (goal: All by November 2022) before activating it. We will let IRCC know once this becomes available through an update to this page.

The question is whether or not this is already being implemented at a land PoE, which sounds like the way you usually enter/exit Canada.

In any event, if questioned, you have no other option than to be completely truthful. It's unfortunate that you did not apply for Spousal Sponsorship right after your marriage, while you were in Canada. You would likely have been a PR by now.

Good luck!

 

[Matt2022]

Thank you for your replies. I appreciate everyone's feedback. Yes, land is the only way I have ever entered Canada. I never tried to extend my visa. When I did enter Canada last (in 2020), I was given a long list of COVID related compliance rules, which I followed to a T. I reported where I was staying, gave quarantine/health updates, etc. Nothing was mentioned about when I had to leave.

Frankly, the thought didn't occur to me to apply for any kind of extension of a visitor's visa. Naively, I thought Americans and Canadians could visit each other freely and stay as long as they wanted, especially if they were married. I have never been told by a border agent I can stay for no longer than 6 months. As someone who has lived along the border for more than 40 years and has crossed hundreds of times without any issues, the bridges that connect the two countries become just like any other bridge. At some level you think you are just crossing a bridge, not entering another country. Now that I have done some research, I can see that I was obviously wrong. And I am fully aware that ignorance of the law is no excuse, so this is entirely on me. Nevertheless, this is where I find myself now. If I could roll the clock back, I certainly would have applied for an extension.

Next year, my wife will be moving to the US. I will not be moving to Canada. I will just answer the questions directly and honestly and hope the Christmas spirit allows some understanding within the agent I deal with.

Thank you for all of your input. I am still open to any other observations or help.

 

[Ponga]

Good plan.

You are not the first person to have made those assumptions regarding the two countries. As logical as it sounds, it is unfortunately not the case.

You could spin your wheels reading through the CBSA manuals (ENF 23, for example) to see how a foreign national is assessed when seeking entry into Canada, but the truth of the matter is...you won't know what will happen until your try. Each CBSA officer has the right to admit or refuse entry to a FN, so if he/she/they do see that you have overstayed, you may find yourself at the mercy of the officer. Converesly, since the office will see your previous movements across the border, you may just get waived through with no questions asked. It's impossible for anyone to offer any solid evidence, either way.

Good luck!

 

[scylla]

Thank you for your replies. I appreciate everyone's feedback. Yes, land is the only way I have ever entered Canada. I never tried to extend my visa. When I did enter Canada last (in 2020), I was given a long list of COVID related compliance rules, which I followed to a T. I reported where I was staying, gave quarantine/health updates, etc. Nothing was mentioned about when I had to leave.

Frankly, the thought didn't occur to me to apply for any kind of extension of a visitor's visa. Naively, I thought Americans and Canadians could visit each other freely and stay as long as they wanted, especially if they were married. I have never been told by a border agent I can stay for no longer than 6 months. As someone who has lived along the border for more than 40 years and has crossed hundreds of times without any issues, the bridges that connect the two countries become just like any other bridge. At some level you think you are just crossing a bridge, not entering another country. Now that I have done some research, I can see that I was obviously wrong. And I am fully aware that ignorance of the law is no excuse, so this is entirely on me. Nevertheless, this is where I find myself now. If I could roll the clock back, I certainly would have applied for an extension.

Next year, my wife will be moving to the US. I will not be moving to Canada. I will just answer the questions directly and honestly and hope the Christmas spirit allows some understanding within the agent I deal with.

Thank you for all of your input. I am still open to any other observations or help.

It's up to you to know the rules. You can't shift the blame to CBSA / border officials and it's not up to them to educate or inform you. You certainly don't want to try using this excuse with either CBSA or IRCC - they generally react very badly to this. You were allowed in for the default six month visit. If you wanted to stay longer, you were required to apply for an extension. So this means you were in Canada illegally / without status for around a year and a half.

This makes the answer to your primary question much less clear since you were in Canada for the year and a half illegally and only recently returned to the US. You may have zero issues re-entering Canada - or it's possible you could have big problems. It's really impossible to guess and will be entirely up to CBSA. I think the only advice any of us here can give you is to answer all questions truthfully that you are asked.

 

[scylla]

Thank you for your replies. I appreciate everyone's feedback. Yes, land is the only way I have ever entered Canada. I never tried to extend my visa. When I did enter Canada last (in 2020), I was given a long list of COVID related compliance rules, which I followed to a T. I reported where I was staying, gave quarantine/health updates, etc. Nothing was mentioned about when I had to leave.

Frankly, the thought didn't occur to me to apply for any kind of extension of a visitor's visa. Naively, I thought Americans and Canadians could visit each other freely and stay as long as they wanted, especially if they were married. I have never been told by a border agent I can stay for no longer than 6 months. As someone who has lived along the border for more than 40 years and has crossed hundreds of times without any issues, the bridges that connect the two countries become just like any other bridge. At some level you think you are just crossing a bridge, not entering another country. Now that I have done some research, I can see that I was obviously wrong. And I am fully aware that ignorance of the law is no excuse, so this is entirely on me. Nevertheless, this is where I find myself now. If I could roll the clock back, I certainly would have applied for an extension.

Next year, my wife will be moving to the US. I will not be moving to Canada. I will just answer the questions directly and honestly and hope the Christmas spirit allows some understanding within the agent I deal with.

Thank you for all of your input. I am still open to any other observations or help.

One other comment that is important with regards to your spouse. Make sure you do the right thing with regards to your wife moving to the US. The US is far far less forgiving than Canada when it comes to immigration violations. If the tables were turned and it was your wife who had overstayed for 1.5 years in the US and then returned to Canada, she would now be facing a 10 year ban from the US.