Here is our landing experience.
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Note: we originally applied from Vancouver but due to a job loss had to temporarily shift to Montreal.
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We started off from Montréal early around 7:00am.
Drove to Brockville, Ontario and reached there around 9:40 am where we were waiting for 2 of our friends coming from Toronto who were also to do their landing along with us.
They reached our location and we all started at 11:00am towards the Thousand Islands Bridge Border crossing.
We hired a cab to take us all there and we reached the USA side first.
The American border officer stopped us at the port of entry and started to ask questions to the first person of contact who was our driver (poor guy probably have never done something like flagpoling before). The officer gave us a bit of a hard time and started to ask questions like how we know each other, why is it that we were not driving and he was, what was our purpose, etc and then asked the driver to pull into the compound and park the car. Then we were asked to get down and head on into the American border office building where another officer was waiting for us.( probably because the car had one two many Indians than they would like)
At this point of time the officer called us towards him and started asking how do we know each other, why did we decide to come to this location when for me there were closer options in Montreal and Niagara falls for my friend. We answered in all honesty that I can't apply from Quebec and Niagara falls is generally quite busy with limited applications received per day and not on weekends. That we had lost our jobs in Vancouver due to a massive lay off (to which the border officer kinda insultingly said that it meant we were not good in our jobs) and then gave us a refused entry to USA slip and sent us back towards Canada. The whole process at the American side took about 20-30 mins.
We took a U turn and drove to the Canadian side where we were greeted by a very polite Border officer who asked us our purpose of coming. We said for completing our landing and she handed us over our passports and asked us to park in the compound and walk inside the building. Once we entered the building a receptionist asked us and guided us to the immigration counter where one officer took our passports and COPRs. I mentioned to him that the first date of entry into Canada for my spouse was wrong and he told me not to worry about it. Took our address for PR card mailing and said to give him our residential address. We gave our Montreal one and he asked us to kindly have a seat. We waited for about 10 mins and were called to the booth again. We were asked to sign the COPR in 4 places.. 3 initials and 1 full signature. The officer himself signed and explained that how in the next couple of weeks our PR cards would come in via email and that we should always be very careful with our cards and protect it. He then stamped our COPRs within our passports and congratulated us on becoming Permanent Residents of Canada.
A very long journey finally came to an end.. A huge weight was lifted off my shoulder and the drive back home seemed just too beautiful to be true.. A sense of belonging finally realized as true. I wish all other applicants a speedy processing.
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Note: we originally applied from Vancouver but due to a job loss had to temporarily shift to Montreal.
------
We started off from Montréal early around 7:00am.
Drove to Brockville, Ontario and reached there around 9:40 am where we were waiting for 2 of our friends coming from Toronto who were also to do their landing along with us.
They reached our location and we all started at 11:00am towards the Thousand Islands Bridge Border crossing.
We hired a cab to take us all there and we reached the USA side first.
The American border officer stopped us at the port of entry and started to ask questions to the first person of contact who was our driver (poor guy probably have never done something like flagpoling before). The officer gave us a bit of a hard time and started to ask questions like how we know each other, why is it that we were not driving and he was, what was our purpose, etc and then asked the driver to pull into the compound and park the car. Then we were asked to get down and head on into the American border office building where another officer was waiting for us.( probably because the car had one two many Indians than they would like)
At this point of time the officer called us towards him and started asking how do we know each other, why did we decide to come to this location when for me there were closer options in Montreal and Niagara falls for my friend. We answered in all honesty that I can't apply from Quebec and Niagara falls is generally quite busy with limited applications received per day and not on weekends. That we had lost our jobs in Vancouver due to a massive lay off (to which the border officer kinda insultingly said that it meant we were not good in our jobs) and then gave us a refused entry to USA slip and sent us back towards Canada. The whole process at the American side took about 20-30 mins.
We took a U turn and drove to the Canadian side where we were greeted by a very polite Border officer who asked us our purpose of coming. We said for completing our landing and she handed us over our passports and asked us to park in the compound and walk inside the building. Once we entered the building a receptionist asked us and guided us to the immigration counter where one officer took our passports and COPRs. I mentioned to him that the first date of entry into Canada for my spouse was wrong and he told me not to worry about it. Took our address for PR card mailing and said to give him our residential address. We gave our Montreal one and he asked us to kindly have a seat. We waited for about 10 mins and were called to the booth again. We were asked to sign the COPR in 4 places.. 3 initials and 1 full signature. The officer himself signed and explained that how in the next couple of weeks our PR cards would come in via email and that we should always be very careful with our cards and protect it. He then stamped our COPRs within our passports and congratulated us on becoming Permanent Residents of Canada.
A very long journey finally came to an end.. A huge weight was lifted off my shoulder and the drive back home seemed just too beautiful to be true.. A sense of belonging finally realized as true. I wish all other applicants a speedy processing.
