Landing Appointments (inland)

[Matt the Aussie]

My experience in arranging a landing appointment.

First, I should explain that I am very wary of the US having any sort of record on me, so I do not really feel comfortable with the concept of "flagpoling". Just my personal feeling, many others have done it successfully.

I already spend, on average, 1-2 hours at each (road) border crossing explaining my temporary work permit status and that I'm NOT trying to illegally move to the US. Whenever I have flown instead they have not had any issues...not sure why that is?

I got my Decision Made message on March 9 (that's when I happened to check, not sure if it posted a few days earlier). I received my CoPR on Wednesday March 12. The CoPR letter tells you that you can proceed to a POE or you can call the CIC call centre to arrange a landing appointment at the nearest inland office.

I called the next day (13th) to ask a few questions (the CIC response I'll put in bold):
- What is the current wait time for an appointment? 3-4 weeks
- Where is the office? Closest one to me is Kitchener
- Can I go to a different office where the wait time is less? No, only the one closest to your address
- Can I book the appointment please? We do not book the appointment, we only send a request to Kitchener CIC to have them contact you with an appointment time
- How will they contact me? That is up to Kitchener CIC

So the request was made and I got on with my life.

2 weeks went by and I heard nothing from anybody about this. I started to panic about the wait time – if they said 3-4 weeks and I still haven’t heard from them, they must obviously be wrong. I then called again to CIC:

- Why haven’t they contacted me yet? Not sure, but not under our control
- Can you confirm you actually did send the request? Yes
- Can you confirm the wait time is supposed to be 3-4 weeks for Kitchener CIC? That’s the appointment timeframe, but the regional office has UP TO 90 DAYS to respond to our request for your appointment.
- So in some cases the wait can be up to 4 months (90 days + 3-4 weeks)? Yes

I ended the call extremely angry. At this point I booked a hotel in Buffalo and prepared to drive to the border on April 16 – I had already booked time off from work that week.

About 2 days later, I get a LETTER in the mail with an appointment time! Why on earth they chose to send a LETTER, the absolute slowest form of communication possible, when they could have phoned or e-mailed me, is beyond my comprehension. Ottawa had communicated by email during the entire process, so why now is Kitchener using mail?

The appointment was set for April 11…so it was almost 4 weeks exactly from the date of my first call. But now I have a problem in that I’ve already booked the 16th…and I already had unbreakable plans on the 11th.

Time for my third call to CIC:

- Can I cancel my appointment? Not through us, contact Kitchener CIC
- But they haven’t left a phone number on their letter…how would I contact them? Send them a letter back (at this point I’m thinking, “What is this, the 50s???”)
- What happens when I cancel my appointment? Will Kitchener confirm? Will it show on my file, and will IO at the POE find that suspicious? Not sure

I ended the call. So, long story short, my “unbreakable” plans on the 11th were moved, and I will be attending my landing appointment that day.

I will update you all with how it goes after the fact.

 

[resubmitmypr]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Matt.

 

[Toronto2013]

Good luck with your landing. Curious to know how your experience would be!

 

[Matt the Aussie]

Thanks guys. There isn't much info on landing appointments on here so I thought I'd share...maybe my story is one of the reasons why they're not too common :

 

[Mike1981]

My experience in arranging a landing appointment.

First, I should explain that I am very wary of the US having any sort of record on me, so I do not really feel comfortable with the concept of "flagpoling". Just my personal feeling, many others have done it successfully.

I already spend, on average, 1-2 hours at each (road) border crossing explaining my temporary work permit status and that I'm NOT trying to illegally move to the US. Whenever I have flown instead they have not had any issues...not sure why that is?

I got my Decision Made message on March 9 (that's when I happened to check, not sure if it posted a few days earlier). I received my CoPR on Wednesday March 12. The CoPR letter tells you that you can proceed to a POE or you can call the CIC call centre to arrange a landing appointment at the nearest inland office.

I called the next day (13th) to ask a few questions (the CIC response I'll put in bold):
- What is the current wait time for an appointment? 3-4 weeks
- Where is the office? Closest one to me is Kitchener
- Can I go to a different office where the wait time is less? No, only the one closest to your address
- Can I book the appointment please? We do not book the appointment, we only send a request to Kitchener CIC to have them contact you with an appointment time
- How will they contact me? That is up to Kitchener CIC

So the request was made and I got on with my life.

2 weeks went by and I heard nothing from anybody about this. I started to panic about the wait time – if they said 3-4 weeks and I still haven't heard from them, they must obviously be wrong. I then called again to CIC:

- Why haven't they contacted me yet? Not sure, but not under our control
- Can you confirm you actually did send the request? Yes
- Can you confirm the wait time is supposed to be 3-4 weeks for Kitchener CIC? That's the appointment timeframe, but the regional office has UP TO 90 DAYS to respond to our request for your appointment.
- So in some cases the wait can be up to 4 months (90 days + 3-4 weeks)? Yes

I ended the call extremely angry. At this point I booked a hotel in Buffalo and prepared to drive to the border on April 16 – I had already booked time off from work that week.

About 2 days later, I get a LETTER in the mail with an appointment time! Why on earth they chose to send a LETTER, the absolute slowest form of communication possible, when they could have phoned or e-mailed me, is beyond my comprehension. Ottawa had communicated by email during the entire process, so why now is Kitchener using mail?

The appointment was set for April 11...so it was almost 4 weeks exactly from the date of my first call. But now I have a problem in that I've already booked the 16th...and I already had unbreakable plans on the 11th.

Time for my third call to CIC:

- Can I cancel my appointment? Not through us, contact Kitchener CIC
- But they haven't left a phone number on their letter...how would I contact them? Send them a letter back (at this point I'm thinking, “What is this, the 50s???”)
- What happens when I cancel my appointment? Will Kitchener confirm? Will it show on my file, and will IO at the POE find that suspicious? Not sure

I ended the call. So, long story short, my “unbreakable” plans on the 11th were moved, and I will be attending my landing appointment that day.

I will update you all with how it goes after the fact.

Just go to boarder. Honestly i asked U.S homeland security officers about the consequence of Admin Refusal and they said because Canada makes you do this then no consequences at all.
the reason i'm saying this is because one day in your life as a citizen of Canada you will go to U.S and they will investigate you no matter what.

 

[Matt the Aussie]

The border is 2-3 hour drive and I have a full-time job. The 16th is the earliest I could have gone anyway, and the appointment is earlier than that so I'm just going to do it.

 

[spookyb]

Matt, that was very informative. CIC told me it'll be 4-6 weeks to get an appointment. 8 weeks max.

Good luck with your in-land landing and let us know how it goes.

 

[nov1061]

The border is 2-3 hour drive and I have a full-time job. The 16th is the earliest I could have gone anyway, and the appointment is earlier than that so I'm just going to do it.

And what about to arrange the US visa (if you need one). Wouldn't be that option faster? Aren't you visa exempt? You don't need anything in that case. Just make a trip to the US and land on the way back.

 

[Matt the Aussie]

And what about to arrange the US visa (if you need one). Wouldn't be that option faster? Aren't you visa exempt? You don't need anything in that case. Just make a trip to the US and land on the way back.

As an Australian, I am visa-exempt in both Canada and the US, but I still do not have 6-8 hours just to drive to Fort Erie and turn right back around again.

Your second point about making a trip to the US...had the appointment been after the 16th that's what I would have done. But seeing as it is before, I will just do the appointment. I still plan on doing some shopping in the US on the 16th so no harm, no foul.

 

[Matt the Aussie]

For those of you that are interested, here is my experience with the landing appointment. Refer to the first post to see how I got the appointment in the first place.

I arrived at CIC Kitchener about 5 minutes early for my appointment, set for 11:20am on Friday 11th April. The first thing I noticed walking in was a big sign saying “WE ARE NOT THE PASSPORT OFFICE”. I thought this was strange initially, but there were 2 people who came in after me who asked for passport renewal forms, so I guess that made sense.

Place was empty when I arrived. I waited at the front desk maybe a minute for a guy to turn up. He asked me for all my documents – Passport, CoPR, proof that I paid the RPRF (I took my receipt) and 2 photos. I was prepared for this because the appointment letter told me to bring all of these things.

I sat down for only a few minutes when the IO came into the waiting room to collect me and take me to a small side room. I asked if my wife could come too and she was fine with that.

We sat down and she looked over my documents. She looked at my UCI and asked how long I had been in Canada. I told her almost 6 years now, and she said she could tell it had been a long time based on my UCI. It was at that point that I brought up the “first entry date” on my CoPR was incorrect – it matched my “last entry date”, which was correct. She said not to worry about that. From the forum I knew this was a common problem and also that this was the standard response, but I wanted to make sure it was addressed.

She was also surprised that my CoPR already had a photo attached, in addition to the 2 photos I had provided for the appointment. She then said, “oh well, Sydney now has 3 photos to choose from”.

Then she reviewed the CoPR. She asked the 3 general questions on the CoPR about being refused entry to Canada. I answered no verbally to all 3 and then she asked that I write the word NO and initial on that section (both copies).

Next, I was asked about my sponsor. I had to remind the IO that I was under CEC, not Family class. She apologized and said she should have noticed the sponsor section of my CoPR was blank (all “N/A”). Perhaps because my wife was with me she got confused?

She then asked that I sign and date the bottom of the form (again, both copies). Once I did that, she signed both forms, took the one with the photo attached and handed me back the other one. At that point, she confirmed I was now a PR and congratulated me.

We chatted for about 5 minutes about PR and eventual Citizenship. I think she was surprised with how much I already knew on the subject. She brought up the possible changes to Citizenship law and I told her I already understood them, and that it kinda sucked for someone like me who had already lived here so long. She agreed. She also quoted “6-8 weeks” for the PR card to arrive by mail and confirmed my address had not changed.

I left, and I THOUGHT everything was all squared away. I got a phone call from a blocked number about 5 minutes after leaving, so I let it go to voicemail. It was the IO, she needed me to come back into the office.

So, back to the office I go. Luckily there was no wait, the front desk guy got the IO and we went back into the side room. She was very apologetic, but there was a section at the top of the CoPR that we did not go through regarding my last entry to Canada. She asked what date that was and where it took place. I showed her my passport stamp from that time. It corresponded with what was on the form, but she also wrote in pen the location of my entry (in my case, Kitchener Airport). She also filled in the “became PR on” field with date and location (Kitchener CIC). She made sure that all of this was updated on BOTH my copy that I brought back with me as well as the one she already had.

All in all, a very pleasant experience and very little wait time. Would have been nice to not have to turn around and go again, but mistakes happen – I’m just glad it was caught before it was submitted off to Sydney.

 

[hyjk1982]

Hi, I called CIC on april. 24 and booked the landing process in kitchener office. They said they will mail to me about the requirements and the date. So I just want to know how long will it take to receive this letter? Thanks anyway!

 

[Matt the Aussie]

Hi, I called CIC on april. 24 and booked the landing process in kitchener office. They said they will mail to me about the requirements and the date. So I just want to know how long will it take to receive this letter? Thanks anyway!

Mine arrived about 7-10 days before the appointment time. Did the call centre agent give you an idea of how long it would be to get the appointment?

 

[NateAlexander]

So I’m not sure what to do with my situation, so if you have any suggestions or information, it would be SUPER helpful!

We finally heard back after the DM and got an email with this subject header:

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada - Communication to client/Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada - Communication auprès de la clientèle - CPCM / CTDM - Inland Landing Letter F000xxxxxx

The pdf included in the email stated that KITCHENER IRCC would “be in contact” to arrange an appointment; and I wonder if really I should call and let them know I’ve received it or something?

We applied inland, via family (spouses). We received the OPW, etc .. and I’m immigrating from the US to Canada.

Thanks!