My husband and I had a successful soft landing experience on Nov 18, right before our CoPR and PR visa expired.
We drove from Boston to Buffalo and arrived at the border in the evening. At entry point, we told the officer we wanted to confirm our CoPR and return to the US immediate. She sent us to the office building directly.
The office was almost empty when we got inside. We told the officer inside about our plan. He listened patiently and asked a couple questions:
- Where do you live currently? We told him Boston and we drove 7hrs to get here in order to complete the landing before everything expired.
- When do you plan to move permanently? We told him 2021 spring ideally when the vaccine is out. We also mentioned that we originally plan to land by air back in Mar but had to cancel everything because of the pandemic.
- Do you have your GTF list? We did not prepare this as we were not moving permanently on that day, but he said we had to do it at the 1st landing. We then told him we would skip the list and import nothing when we move in the future. He did not have a problem with that.
- Proof of funds? We gave him a copy of my most recent bank statement.
- Address in Canada? We told him we do not have a permanent address in Canada but do have friends live there. This super nice officer then said we can use that address for our PR cards. We were very surprised because from other soft landing stories we knew that Peace Bridge border rarely initiates PR cards for soft landings, and we did not even plan to ask about it. As I was searching for my friend's address on my phone, the officer took my phone and copied the address to his computer.
After the above questions, we both signed CoPR after the officer and he welcomed us to Canada. After that he stapled one copy of the signed CoPR to our passports. He then explained to us we can travel by land using the signed CoPR for now and after we get PR cards we can take off the stapled documents and start using cards for any types of travel. After that he showed us how to make the U turn back to US border and we drove away.
At the US border, both of us used AVR. The process was not very smooth for me since my previous professional background was a little bit sensitive but everything worked out at the end after answering tons of questions.
Overall this was a VERY luck day for us. We finally had the courage to do soft landing after reading other successful stories on this forum. Now it's our time to contribute. Feel free to ask me any questions~
We drove from Boston to Buffalo and arrived at the border in the evening. At entry point, we told the officer we wanted to confirm our CoPR and return to the US immediate. She sent us to the office building directly.
The office was almost empty when we got inside. We told the officer inside about our plan. He listened patiently and asked a couple questions:
- Where do you live currently? We told him Boston and we drove 7hrs to get here in order to complete the landing before everything expired.
- When do you plan to move permanently? We told him 2021 spring ideally when the vaccine is out. We also mentioned that we originally plan to land by air back in Mar but had to cancel everything because of the pandemic.
- Do you have your GTF list? We did not prepare this as we were not moving permanently on that day, but he said we had to do it at the 1st landing. We then told him we would skip the list and import nothing when we move in the future. He did not have a problem with that.
- Proof of funds? We gave him a copy of my most recent bank statement.
- Address in Canada? We told him we do not have a permanent address in Canada but do have friends live there. This super nice officer then said we can use that address for our PR cards. We were very surprised because from other soft landing stories we knew that Peace Bridge border rarely initiates PR cards for soft landings, and we did not even plan to ask about it. As I was searching for my friend's address on my phone, the officer took my phone and copied the address to his computer.
After the above questions, we both signed CoPR after the officer and he welcomed us to Canada. After that he stapled one copy of the signed CoPR to our passports. He then explained to us we can travel by land using the signed CoPR for now and after we get PR cards we can take off the stapled documents and start using cards for any types of travel. After that he showed us how to make the U turn back to US border and we drove away.
At the US border, both of us used AVR. The process was not very smooth for me since my previous professional background was a little bit sensitive but everything worked out at the end after answering tons of questions.
Overall this was a VERY luck day for us. We finally had the courage to do soft landing after reading other successful stories on this forum. Now it's our time to contribute. Feel free to ask me any questions~
