tensi said:
Congrats to all who received their passport. Those who didn't yet, trust me you will and don't lose your hair over the delay. You can't do much about it, so there is no point in worrying about something you have no control over (Lesson I learnt over and over in my life).
Now, piece of advice to those who are planning to land by crossing the border and back.
Do not drive to the US border without a Visa hoping that they will easily allow you to make a u-turn to go back to the Canadian border so you can officially land.
If you do attempt without a visa, what they will do is flag your profile as "rejected entry into the US" without any further context to it. How this will impact you is:
1. Whenever you apply for a US visa in future, you will have to put a check mark on "Yes" to the following question in the application: Have you ever been refused a U.S. Visa, been refused admission to the United States, or withdrawn your application for admission at the point of entry? You can't even give a clarification anywhere on the application.
2. If you are somehow successful is getting a Visa, every single time you cross the border, you will need to explain why you were denied an entry into US in the past. They will get you to park your car and go inside the office. The wait times along with this process is just so much freakin inconvenient.
Off course all of this will go away once you get your Canadian passport, but still.....
Hope this helps and gives you a perspective.
Cheers and all the best
After being approved by Singapore and got visa stamping done in Ottawa, I took my mom to Coutts land border in Alberta Friday afternoon to complete her landing formality. The process was so quick and seamless. Since we wanted to avoid busy weekend we decided to go Friday afternoon and both sides were pretty much quiet, even though it is the biggest border crossing in Alberta. We were one of very few passenger vehicles, the rest were cargo trucks at the time.
Quite different from others' experiences, it took us longer at the U.S office than on Canadian side. On the U.S side, we were told to park the car and came inside the building. Officer was nice, after about 20 minutes doing some paperworks on computer (I think their computer system was somehow slower than usual) he came back and gave my mom notice of refusal of admission into the U.S. Without being asked, he told us not to worry as this has nothing to do with our entry records to the U.S, it is an administrative refusal that we need to present to Canada to do the landing on Canadian side tonight. He said you guys can declare "no" if later being asked if ever refused into the U.S. Then he drove his car to escort us back to the U-turn into Canada.
Once on Canadian soil, the frontline officer at the gate asked what we were there for, and took my Canadian passport and my mom foreign passport. He asked typical custom questions about items or cash to declare to which we responded no. He then gave us a yellow paper, asked us to pull over to the front building and come inside with all other paperworks. Friendly, quick and professional.
We went inside, there was nobody in the line for landing, we were the only people (actually just my mom) there at 8pm Friday afternoon. One male officer greeted us warmly and asked if mother can speak English, if not I will need to translate. He was the only immigration officer on duty at the time I guess. He immediately proceeded to the COPR signing process, and asked mom 2 questions printed on COPR, which are "ever been arrested" and "any other dependent children". He didn't ask anything else. He asked us to surrender any residence permits we had. Then he asked me to write down Canadian address to send PR card. Mom initialed on the 2 COPR copies for those 2 questions and signed at the bottom. He then told us to sit and wait. After 5-7 minutes of entering data in the system, he called us back, and very nicely and warmly smiled and said to us "Please tell your mom I congratulate her for becoming a PR today. It's all done now. Expect her PR Card to arrive within 90 days". He stapled her COPR to the passport and told us this paper is her temporary proof of PR. He gave us a paper instruction on how to get SIN and Health Care. By the way make sure you bring any immigration permits you had since they do ask you to surrender at the time of landing.
Our own experience about landing at land border was quite pleasant, quick and easy. The whole process for both US and Canadian side was just about 30 minutes. I guess we came during less busy hours so the officers from both sides were nice and helpful, though I heard some people had very bad and scary experiences with officers at border crossings in Alberta when they try to validate their COPR during busy hours, especially at the Carway POE. I heard officers at land borders are not as friendly as those stationed at airports and they rarely say "congrats" etc., but in our case it was quite different at Coutts.
