Quote:
Originally Posted by Phil306
Felony? Canada can deny you entry for a misdemeanor. Thousands of Americans have been denied entry to Canada for a DUI conviction. It was so bad and making such a dent into their tourism, they had to change the rules. Now if you land you can, MAYBE, obtain a one time waiver to get in. Otherwise, you have to wait for 10 yrs, AFTER all probation, etc is completed, then apply for a "Rehabilitation Certificate." Of course, that is only American's going into Canada; not Canadian's coming here. We of course, let anyone in.
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What an absolute load of crap~!
It's the same both ways.
The question asked when entering the U.S. is: "Have you ever been arrested?" NOTE Not charged, not found guilty but just "have you ever been arrested?"\
This means if you have ever been detained for questioning by ANY police force within Canada or the U.S.
This means; and I state this as clearly as possible, if you were detained as a matter of course because you took part in 60's protest BUT were never charged or formally arrested, you are in a database that Canada willingly and by treaty now shares with your border agents and must have applied for the "deemed rehabilitated" certificate from U.S. authorities or you do not enter PERIOD!
Where you folks get the idea that we can just cross without any requirements is just stupid; that's your
other border.
As long time RV'ers to your southwest dating back to the earlyt nineties we were routinely subjected to secondary inspections where our RV was searched for alcohol and tobacco products over the allowed limit. This got to be a standing joke with your agents who would often kibbitz with us about "you know the drill by now." Only after many years of crossing regularly at Detroit/Windsor did our names and tags get put on list of folks who had been checked thoroughly a number of times and were considered low risk.
A friend who was caught joy riding with three others in a car owned by the driver's father but being driven without his permission was put into the system in 1974 when the father of the boy thought it would be a lesson to have them detained by the police for a few hours. Guess what? Yep, his name along with the others went into a file somewhere.
My friends father later emigrated to the U.S. (Fort Lauderdale) and when my friend showed up at the border in 1986 on his way to visit his father he answered "no" to the above "arrest" question and was refused entry on the spot! He was never charged, he was never
formally arrested, but there is no facility in the systems to differentiate between a cop doing his paper work to "scare" a bunch of kids and that paper-work then being entered onto fiche film or later disc's in a bulk transfer.
He is a regular traveller back and forth now but has been admonished to guard that little pink certificate he has, as it is no longer issued and todays process for the "deemed rehabilitated" is costly and time consuming.
The border between our two countries is of parallel concern for agents of both sides with exactly the same degree of uncertainty at the mere behest of the particular agents "feelings" of the moment. He or she takes a dislike to you and you're toast. You then come under a whole new set of guidelines with the second question asked being: "have you ever been denied entry to the U.S.?" bringing with it a much more elevated level of scrutiny.
Canadians are not eligible to holler "racism" and get immediate attention if denied entry.
Canadians are not treated merely with a bus ticket back to Canada if they are caught in your country illegally.
Canadians caught in your country illegally will have a criminal conviction shown on their record to make them FOREVER persona-non-grata AND if caught there illegally multiple times will perform some jail time and NOT just simply sent home to swim across once more.
All of this stuff is as it should be whenever a border is present.
Please do something about your lower one before cutting off your nose to spite your tourism face on the northern one.
My wife and I are the quintessential examples of what I believe to be your ideal border crossers; retired individuals who own a house in Florida, a car, titled and insured that stays in Florida, paying property taxes in Florida and who do NOT make any income from activities in the U.S. but are down there SPENDING a significant portion of the fruits of our over 45 years of labour
earned in Canada.
I willingly tip 20% to waiters and consider it a good deal compared to the cost of the same meal served in Canada. We donate to a couple of local charities down there where we can actually see the result of our contribution to the needy. We volunteer our time to local org's with footprints requiring much volunteer assistance with very little government support as those are the ones that are integrity based in my mind.
If you are at all interested in comparing "apples to apples" perform a google about your
IRS from 8840 required to be filled out by Canadians who are merely visiting and spending money down there. You will be surprised to learn that mere situation of being inside the U.S. for a total of 183 days spread over three preceding years according to a specific formulae can result in Canadians having to file an IRS tax return and pay income taxes on CANADIAN DERIVED INCOME! Sound fair to you?
We know full well and live in fear of that time we could run afoul of a particularly stupid TSA agent at an airport that could ruin our day and subsequent crossings but, that is the crap shoot with crossing
either direction.
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