FlyingDutchman6666

Lack of unlimited amounts of oil easily shippable to China and America.

Gozit

Err yeah you did misinterpret. I'm very sceptical of the police and always know my rights. I would most definitely not be OK if a cop stopped someone on the street and asked them for ID. We don't live in the US for christ sake.

The latter one, no I wouldn't be ok with that either as he's walking down the street, he has no obligation to carry ID. As for being beaten up and put in the drunk tank, that's up to his behaviour. If he was resisting arrest and otherwise (legitimately !) endangering the well being of the cop or others around him then the standard procedure would be to put them in the drunk tank would it not?

Dashie

You have a car?

That's planning ahead

I think if the police suddenly require people to carry specific documentation, it should be made public and obvious so that people carry it. As for the motives behind asking, they may be questionable.

Gozit

Oops grammar error. I wouldn't carry my passport in my car if I had one. But when I start driving in 2 months I won't carry it either.

The police would have to cut through a whole lot of federal red tape to make it legal so i'm not too worried about that happening.

bats

I know of one in this area. Working cash in hand not paying taxes. They were here for 7 years but the marriage broke down, no money coming in, and had to leave. The local feeling was that this white American should be allowed to stay as they have Canadian children, they said they weren't here illegally even though they had no work permit as they weren't working. They are now back and working while a spousal application is in process.

Double standards operating .

Steveh27wp

Wait a minute, though. Having your drivers licence with you when driving is pretty much mandatory ....... however ..... to obtain a drivers licence you are required to provide at least two acceptable forms of ID. I wonder just how many " illegals" can do this. I suspect a large percentage have no licence; thus no insurance.

Gozit

This is a good point.

Gozit

Even if they WERENT working they would be illegal because American citizens only have 6 months out of every 12 as a "visitor". Double standards indeed.

Steve_

Lot of generalization in this thread, we don't know who CBSA picked up and sent to detention, they could be hardened criminals on the lamb for all we know.

Also illegality is something that can only be determined in court, perhaps some of these people have a legitimate claim to asylum for example.

And employers exploit them, e.g. by paying less than the prevailing wage.

Anyway, my personal view is this is going to get worse because of the new restrictions on TFWs, but the number of people unlawfully present in Canada is very low compared to most developed countries. The estimates I've seen are somewhere around a little over 100,000. Which is tiny. And my understanding is that a lot of those are failed asylum seekers, so the comments earlier in this thread about people visiting and staying illegally - well it definitely does happen, but it's not some gigantic problem.

I always remember those Mexicans who were stopped and waiting at primary inspection on Highway 6 I think it was, anyway this was before visa requirements were imposed. Three of them I think jumped out the truck and ran into the woods and two were later found dead of exposure. Comment from CBSA superintendent in the paper: "Er... they're not illegal here."

Steve_

Well no not really because this happens with Canadians in the US all the time, they get married to Americans and never get the paperwork done. I've seen situations where they didn't even realize there was paperwork until their spouse died. Or, a Canadian will get married to an American but already has kids and doesn't realize there is any paperwork until they grow up and need to get SSNs.

Also, loads of people go down to NYC from Québec at Christmas to sell trees, which is blatantly illegal but CBP seem to turn a blind eye to it.

Regardless of colour, I just think the whole Canadian/US immigration thing is totally mad. The one thing that really wound me up was when the city of Calgary hired a bunch of people from the UK to be C-train drivers, when the US was in recession and they could easily have hired them from the US. Then when they all got laid off there would have been no scandal as there eventually was.

The problem is that Canada fears a "brain drain" to the US and the US is just generally paranoid so all these stupid immigration restrictions remain. (Even though nurses and doctors can work in the US quite easily under NAFTA, so I never get how this "brain drain" is supposed to happen).

Shard

Couldn't they hire Canadians?

Gozit

What, so US nationals/the US in general is better than the UK? US citizens should have more priority in Canada then British citizens? Why would that be? We have more historical ties to the United Kingdom than we do to the US.

Steve_

What Calgary? No they tried apparently and then decided they had to go to Leeds. I asked my alderman many times why, they just wouldn't say why in any detail, I got the impression they just wanted to go to Leeds and have the city pay for a trip abroad. It just seemed bizarre to me to go to Leeds. Someone on here did have an explanation as to why they needed them so badly, I forget why but I still can't understand why they couldn't go to Chicago and hire them.

Gozit

What is the difference between Chicago and Leeds? Why is the US so special? I for one applaud them for going somewhere other than the US for once

Steve_

Yes they should imo. Especially given that the cost of finding them and moving them here is much less. Plus if you have to lay them off (which they did) it's nowhere near as big of a deal for them to drive back to the US, is it?

It just seems obvious you should try the next nearest country before you start poking around on another continent. And clearly someone from say, Chicago or Detroit would adapt more quickly to the weather, etc. Less of an upheaval for them, all they've got to do is put their stuff in a U-Haul.

Another example is the boom in house building, I knew someone who was from Missouri and he was a TFW and his employer just couldn't be bothered to do the paperwork for his PR application so he ended up going home. Well how stupid is that? All of these Americans out of work when the housing market collapsed and companies are bringing in people from Brazil?