We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Hi

I just thought I'd let you know of our flagpoling experience today. I'd read a few on here and not all seemed to go too well.

I rang Carway border crossing earlier in the week to confirm the information I needed to bring and the chap I spoke to was very helpful. My husband had a TWP and permission for mine was received a week after we got here in December 2009. I'd read that Carway staff sometimes weren't very helpful but with 3 young children and coming from Edmonton the thought of an extra 100km to Coutts was not an option.

We arrived at Carway today just about 3pm, it was deserted. We went to the office for advice as to where to go and came across a really officious official who was quite abrupt. We went to the American border control and spoke to a really helpful man. We had to fill in the green form and pay USA$6 for each one. There were no difficult questions and the chap was quite sociable. We then went back into Canada only to be greated by the officious officer we'd seen earlier. She passed us onto Canadian immigration. We waited about 5 minutes and were seen, the officer we saw was the chap I's spoken to earlier in the week. We passed over the email confirming I could have a TWP, our marriage certificate and a copy of Davids job offer so they could match it to the LMO. He came back about 10 minutes to say everything was fine and he was jsut going to print out the permit. We were out of there about 4pm.

It was so easy we thought we'd missed a part out! The canadian officer did say on Friday evening the cars were queueing way down the road for 5 hours, we had one couple in front of us and they were being dealt with by another officer.

Todays experience was like the immigation experience we had in December - not nearly as bad as we'd expected from reading other accounts. Good luck to anyone else who's doing it anytime soon,

Ness

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Hey congrats. Where in Sherwood Park are you?
:thumbsup:

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Hi

We're renting in Nottinghaaam - to speak Canadian!! Are you there too?

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Just over the road from you in Forrest Greens!

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

They charged you to refuse you entry to the States? There's necky... Or did you enter and then come back in to Canada? I didn't pay at Coutts when I flagpoled to get my WP... :blink:

Glad it was easy though. We've still got to work out when to land properly.:)

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Hi Debbiem

We had to pay for the Visa Waiver Form, yes we had to pay for our very short visit to the states! They did say we could keep out portion if we were returning within 90 days, which my husband is, but they kept mine and the childrens. With hindsight perhaps we should have kept them to validate the expense!

Why do you need to land properly?

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

As they paid for the visa waiver they weren't refused entry. If you don't pay for the visa waiver then you haven't entered the USA.

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Please excuse my ignorance but what exactly does "going round the flagpole" actually mean and involve ? I am a Brit living in the USA so you will just have to excuse me .

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Flagpoling is when you leave one country at the boarder and then come right back in by turning around for instance to land as a perminant resident.

It is conveinient because granted or refused entry to the other country it doesnt matter and is is a cheaper option to flying in and out of a country to do the same thing you can do by land.

Literarly, friving around the flagpole is flagpoling.

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Surely you would have to have Permanent resident status to do that.Or am I missing the point somewhere ?

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

People do it to change or revalidate their immigration status. Some to renew a work permit and some to change from temporary to permanent residents.

The USA doesn't care what your status is in Canada as long as you have the right documents to enter the USA, ie a visa waiver as a visitor. Some people prefer not to spend the day in the US on a visit but to turn right around at the border. Going round the flagpole.

Love the name ernie

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Thank you fledermaus you explained it very well. I like your name too
(P.S. I know what your name is in English too) thats cute.:thumbsup:

Peter

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Last time I did it to get my WP put into my passport (here under visiting forces agreement). Now that we have PR visas in our passports we need to 'land' as PR.

OP, so did you literally drive into the states and turn round then? Or did you go for lunch or something? :D I didn't bother to enter, so did the 'don't want to come in, how do I get back to Canadian Immigration' thing - so they just filled in the form and I followed the 'back to Canada' loop. I didn't get charged because I didn't technically enter the US, just flagpoled.

This time I think we're going to go down to Great Falls or somewhere and land on the way back. Less chance of officials getting snippety I think - with the WP I was told I should have made an appointment at the office in Lethbridge. The fact that you can't actually get through on the 'make an appointment with CIC' line is presumably not relevant! :D

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Congratulations- we're going to land soon too!

We've managed to avoid driving to the USA though.

I'm not sure how many people realise that you can land from within Canada - we meet an immigration officer at Canada House in Edmonton in June to land!

Yeah!!!

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Hi

Yes, we literally drove to the american immigration building, parked up and did the official bit. The children had their photo taken outside so they can tell their school friends they went to the USA on the long weekend!! Then we drove out the carpark back to Canada! It would have been nice to do more but it was getting late and we couldn't see anywhere to go.

We've started out PR application, we were hoping to 'land' in an office in Edmonton to save doing the journey again. I'll be interested to hear how you get on doing it at the Great Falls.

Ness :thumbup:

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Hi

Did you land at an office for the work permit? I think we can do it for the PR but when I looked into it I thought we had to leave the country for the TWP.
It would have been alot easier than all the driving with the kids!

Good luck woth your 'landing'

Ness :)

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

The original TWP we landed at Calgary Airport and have since renewed the Work Permit. To be honest I never looked into the full details of how to land with the TWP - we just arrived in Calgary and handed over the papers!

For PR we are going to 'land' at Canada House on Jasper Ave!

This is from Wiki
"Please note that if you are already in Canada and have valid temporary resident status, you now have the option of obtaining your permanent resident status in Canada as opposed to leaving Canada and re-entering at a port of entry. Please contact CIC’s Call Centre at 1-888-242-2100 as soon as possible to arrange an appointment with the nearest Citizenship and Immigration office to your place of residence. (You cannot call this number if you are outside Canada.)"

I called the number and lost a good number of years waiting for them to answer!
However, Canada House did call me the next morning with an appointment on June 14th - can't complain so far!!

Fingers crossed.

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Good luck.

I've sent you a PM re PRs.

We'll keep our fingers crossed for you. :p

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Nikki, have you actually managed to get through on that number? We've been trying since our passports came back - a month ago! It would be so much easier to land in Lethbridge or Calgary, but at the mo we're having to plan to get to the border as we can't get anyone to answer the phone to make an appointment! :D

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Hi Debbie
Yep - I called that number and was on hold for quite a while. They took my details and then a lady from Immigration called the next day with an appointment in June.
I intially tried from my Skype line which wouldn't work - then used my cell and it was fine.
Good Luck

Nikki

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

We're not even getting an option to hold - just getting a message which sayd 'all lines are busy, please call back' and then getting cut off! Oh well. More than one way to skin a cat.;)

Re: We went round the flagpole today & no problems
 

Yes, we did that back in 2007. In actual fact they should not have allowed us to, but they did anyway! I just turned up one day with the paperwork after hearing rumours it was possible. You can read my original post from 2007 on the experience at http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...95#post5079995.

Sounds like they have opened it up a bit more now.
Best wishes!
Rob