kleinluka

Hey everyone,

today my friend drove me to the border to land. I received my passport with visa+COPR on the 9th. We drove from Montreal to the Champlain/Blackpool,Lacolle POE. The weather was very gray and rainy today... not exactly the best setting for such a great day but oh well So after getting stuck in a traffic jam getting out of Montreal on the way to the US border we finally made it to the US checkpoint about 45 minutes later.

My friend (a Canadian) stated that we just wanted to turn back into Canada so I could do my landing and the US officer waves us into secondary inspection. We had to leave our keys with them and we got a little clip with a number and were told to go into the US secondary inspections building. We waited there for about 10 minutes and my name was called. I stated again that I wanted to do my landing in Canada. The US officers were very nice and friendly...they were having computer problems at my counter... the machine wouldn't take my finger prints and the camera to take the picture didn't work so I had to move on to the next counter to get my picture taken there and my prints re-taken. The whole time the US officers were joking around about how stupid their computer system was and blaming "headquarters" for giving them such a stupid system to work with One of the officers asked me where I was from in Germany so I told him and he went on to tell me about his vacationing there and how he loved German beer... An other officer mentioned that she had a bottle of wine in the fridge and couldn't wait to get home. All in all a very light-hearted experience. As they were issuing me my refusal notice I noticed a mistake on the form as they had written "dutch" as my nationality instead of German..so I told them and they printed a new one....they seemed a bit chaotic but they were joking around so it was all good. So I was given the refusal notice and was told that this would not cause any problems when traveling to the US in the future and that if I applied for an ESTA or I94 I could check "NO" where it asks if I had ever been refused admission to the US. They handed me a little red slip reading "RETURN TO CANADA" and we took that and our numbered clip back to the secondary inspection parking lot. The officer there radioed in to stop all traffic at the booths so we could cross all lanes and turn back into Canada.. This whole experience lasted maybe 30-40 minutes.



Approaching the Canadian border there were only few cars in front of us....close to no wait at all.



My friend told the Canadian officer that I was doing my landing. He asked to see my US refusal of admission and the passport, asked if we were carrying any firearms or pepper spray, if I had any goods to follow (nope), who the car belonged to (my friend) and then issued me a yellow slip with a bunch of scribbling on it, one that I could make out which read "Landing" and directed us over to "Lane 2" where the Immigration/Customs building is located. Went in there and handed over my passport and COPR and US refusal. I was asked to take a seat and wait a few minutes. After 5 minutes or so an Immigration Officer came out and called my name. He asked me to write down my Canadian address on a piece of paper and asked if this address would still be valid in 4-6 weeks. I said yes. He asked if I had any proof of funds on me. I showed him a bank statement I printed the night before (it doesn't even have my name on it now that I'm looking at it) and I also mentioned that I have arranged employment and showed him a letter from my Canadian employer to that respect. He wrote how much money I had available onto my COPR and asked me to check over my COPR and verify that all information was correct and to sign with my initials. Then he asked "since you last spoke to an Immigration or Visa officer have you committed any crimes?" I said no So I had to sign my initials next to that on the COPR as well. Then I had to sign inside the box at the bottom of the and he said "do not touch the green box when you sign!" (I wonder what happens if you accidentally cross into the green box). I signed it, then he signed his part and said "ok perfect... please take a seat, I will be right back".. he left and came back about 5-10 minutes later holding a big brown Service Canada envelope, saying "Congratulations, you are now permanent resident of Canada. You have all the rights of a Canadian citizen except to vote or hold public office. Inside this envelope is an application form that you need to apply for your new SIN card. You will be able to apply for Canadian citizenship in 3 years. How long have you lived in Canada?" Me: "Just over 4 years now", so he explained that every day counts half under TWP status and that I could claim up to one year towards my citizenship countdown, so would only have to wait 2 years. He explained that I had to be in Canada for 2 out of every 5 years to maintain my status and then handed me back the yellow customs sheet and my passport with the COPR stapled into it explaining that this served as temporary proof of status until I receive my PR card in 4-6 weeks. He explained that if I wanted to go back to Germany within that time I would need to get a travel document from the Canadian embassy in Berlin and that it would look like the Immigrant visa but it would say "Permanent resident" instead of "Immigrant" on it. I nodded and he said "So that's it. Congratulations again". Very nice! Went over to the Customs guy, handed over the yellow slip and was given a number to punch into the keypad at the gate on the way out of the parking lot. The Canadian side took about 20 minutes. It went very smoothly. To my surprise I was never asked for my CSQ.

So that's it!
I'm now a permanent resident.




fun facts:

- US border officers apparently don't know that Dutch people are from the Netherlands.
- my PR visa now has a bunch of lines on it that make it look like a child drew on it
- my TWP was removed from my passport

Walsh Clan

Thanks Kleinluka for all the info! And congratuations!

Moira.

raymasa

Congratulations kleinluka and thanks for a details write up, very informative and helpful.

Ray

Coffeepot

Great post, shame it was so grey, Congratulations on landing
Wish you luck with everything

Benoit

Congratulations and thanks for the info.

Benoit

bewillow

Very nicely described.

Why did you decide to not fully enter the US, go shopping, have lunch, and then return to Canada? It is something about flagpoling that I have not really understood.

TomHoney

great story congratualations.

JAJ

There is also the option of entering the United States and returning as normal:
http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Trip_a...lagpole-Canada

If you want to keep your German citizenship upon becoming Canadian, you need to get your Beibehaltungsbenehmigung (permission to keep German citizenship) in advance.

The COPR is a permanent document, not temporary (don't lose it or throw it away). As for travel without PR Card, it can be done if you have a visa waiver passport even though CIC don't like to admit it.
http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Perman...nt_Card-Canada

kleinluka

THANKS everyone


Yeah I know but last time I tried to enter on a visa waiver i HAD to give them an address where I would be staying in the US (we were just doing a 1-day trip to Boston)...so I wasn't sure if it would work. Either way, this seemed fine and was much quicker..it was very rainy so not sure what we would have done out in the sticks there.

I know. I still have to work out a plan for that as it seems the German government only permits it in certain cases with strong economical/personal reasons (Which I believe I have) but for now I am sick of sending applications and waiting for approvals so I'll do this when the time comes

Yeah I know. As far as I know I will need this document if I apply for citizenship. I wonder why they decided to print it on this thin flimsy paper and not the thicker one that they use for work permits. What the IO meant was it's not valid for travel (it even has those words imprinted on it "NOT VALID FOR TRAVEL") - however if I am traveling by road the PR card is not a requirement anyway so I should be able to use the COPR+CIC stamp for cross-border traveling by road

JAJ

People make short trips across the land frontier all the time. What will you do the next time you make a trip to the U.S. for shopping, sightseeing, etc.


http://www.usa.diplo.de/Vertretung/u...behaltung.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/zweipaesse/

There is probably a processing time so you don't want to leave it until the point where you are ready to apply for citizenship, unless you want more delay (assuming you care about keeping your German citizenship).

As far as I am aware, it's valid for 2 years once granted.



The COPR is not valid for travel - but your passport is!
All discussed in the wiki article.

terese677

your descripton and photos were fab ,thank you.
Many congratulations

natty13

brilliant post!!
congratulations xxxx

kleinluka

Thank you guys (and gals)

My eCas updated today. It now says:

"Complete.
You entered Canada at the Blackpool/Lacolle office on July 11, 2009 and became a Permanent Resident."


What a great feeling!!
It still hasn't really sunk in yet but I think I'm probably going to have a sudden moment of realization sometime within the next few weeks and I might cry from happiness

kleinluka

True. I just thought about how they almost didn't let me in last time because I didn't have the address of the hotel we were staying at (they had to google it for me). But this might have been because I said we were staying overnight... I'm not sure...The other thing is that it was really crappy weather on Saturday so we didn't really feel like going shopping anywhere. There was some really heavy rain. Matter of fact the wind almost blew my COPR out of my friends hand when he was giving it to the officer at the customs booth outside. I nearly had a heart attack!!!

Thanks, those are great links. I've read through it before and definitely bookmarking it now. I know that I have to make a very strong case with Germany for why I want to have 2 passports. If it doesn't work out in the end.. oh well... But like I said for now I just want to relax and take things easy. I don't want to deal with any applications and fear of refusal of applications for a while

Again, true. But it's no big deal. The PR card usually gets sent within 3-6 weeks anyway and I'm not planning to leave the country until September so it should be alright.

kleinluka

By the way.. just out of curiosity.. When the CIC officer asked me for proof of funds I showed him a bank statement from the night before and it had over $12 000 on it. But he wrote $10 000 on the COPR and signed it. Is this normal?