viperrt10

Hi friends,

Finally completed my landing last Thursday via the Rainbow AND Peace Bridges. Here is what happened:

7:00 pm - arrived in Niagara Falls NY and ordered a cab to take me across the Rainbow bridge into Canada. I had all my documentation ready. Since I am from a SR (Special Registration country) I needed to get an EXIT stamp as I was leaving the United States. As soon as we got to the bridge, my taxi cab got surrounded by 4 EXTREMLY RUDE border patrol agents.

"Where do you think you're going?" one of them questioned in a hostile tone. I explained that I was landing in Canada to complete my PR process. He ordered me to get out of the vehicle. Meanwhile 2 other officers took my belongings (suitcase and documents bag) and THREW THE STUFF on the road. I was escorted into a van and they started asking me questions. He took all the cash I was carrying with me and carelessly started counting it. "What the hell are you doing with so much money?" I explained that it was required to settle in Canada. While all of this was going on I saw a bunch of officers literally playing with my documents (my degreees and my diary). I WAS IN TOTAL DISBELIEF. A lady officer walked up to the guy who was counting my cash and pointed him to several entries in my diary - for example a line where I had converted 10000 Canadian dollars into US currency. They kept on throwing the strangest questions at me and I kept on answeing honestly and confidently. Then he stumbled upon a copy of my passport. I had made this copy in case I lost my passport. The officer got REALLY agitated and commented that he could ARREST me for that. Was this guy out of his mind? Anyway, he finally let me go after 40 minutes or so. I then had to spend 2 hours getting my EXIT stamp. This is done at the US side of the rainbow bridge on the 2nd floor of the building. All in all it took me around 3 hours before I crossed over to the Canadian side. My cab driver told me that I got unlucky because the guys who went thru my stuff are "customs" folks that are on duty once in a blue moon.

Now for the Canadian side: The friggin immigration building looked like a hotel lobby! Everyone was smiling as I walked into the office. After what I had been thru I felt like crying. The Canadian officer was so friendly that I told him my entire experience from the US side of the border. In about 20 minutes I was done. He didn't ask me for proof of funds. Just took my address to have the PR card mailed. I was then directed to a customs officer who took my goods to follow, stamped it and gave it back to me. He even joked around with me saying "you owe me 2000 Canadian dollars" when I was done with everything. REALLY REALLY good experience on the Canadian side.

I was in Toronto for a day. I didn't get my SIN number, neither did I open a bank account. I was too busy working with the HR dept of my company's Toronto office.

On Saturday, I returned via the Peace bridge. I didn't have a valid visa stamp and was travelling on my valid I-94 (30 day revalidation rule). I had to wait 1.5 hours to get photographed on the US boder and crossed into Buffalo without any issues.

Thanks to everyone on this forum for ALL the help over the past year. Please feel free to ask me any question.




-

cryout

man...another horror border story...a perfect piece of custom's brutality!! sometimes is USA, sometimes is Canadian side...I've heard this kind of things from both sides...

anyway, congratulations and allow you a few days at a spa to recover!

Cashew

Wow, what a horrible experience :scared: Well, at least you got the landing part over and done with. Congratulations! and thanks for sharing your story.

Rich_007

Hey dude you survived ! Look forward to the future, that incident was part of your past.

Just call it the United States of Paranoia.

Rich.

MJ23

Glad you made it dude! So do you understand now why you should move to Canada?

Woodstock62

Hi glad to hear you finally made it, even though it was traumatic!
Can I ask, which countries are considered to be SR? I have never heard that term before.

Thanks.

amancharan

that was cheeky.... :scared:
but u should be glad that u became a Canadian PR....
many congrats on that mate.... just forget abt the terrible experience!

viperrt10

Thanks everyone! SR (Special Registration) countries are countries that the US has deemed a threat since Sept 11th, they include most middle eastern and some asian counties.

Take care!

imagination92

Hi Vipert....i was always confuse wether SR people can use automatic revalidation or not? it seems from your post that we can cross border and can come back without valid stamp on valid 1-94. is it right?
i am from pakistan and just want to make sure if we need anything extra for this.
thnaks for your help

viperrt10

Hi Bro, I am Pakistani too! Yes there wasn't any problems whatsoever. Right now only 12 countries are barred from travelling using the 30 day automatic revalidation rule and Pakistan isn't one of them. Feel free to email me with any questions, I would love to help!

Woodstock62

Thanks for clearing that up for me.

Enjoy Canada, I am so jealous!