CBSA border crossing reports
- Thread starter wsm_al
- Start date
This topic has been widely discussed in this forum. Here are 2 links to answer your question:wsm_al said:
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/cbsa-record-please-help-t135122.0.html
http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/cbsa-report-t135741.0.html
What to expect:wsm_al said:
1. CIC will inspect your passport for departure/arrival stamps
2. You may be asked for an official translation for stamps that are not in English
Recently, reentries to certain Canadian borders, provided a PR card is presented, are not stamped. This also poses a question on how accurate your absence dates are.
In the citizenship application form (CIT0002E), question #9, it is recommended that you click YES to the question:
I hereby authorize CIC to collect the histories of my entries into Canada from CBSA. (Yes or No)
Nevertheless, to avoid unnecessary delay, even though you answer yes to question #9 on CIT0002E, if you have ambiguous or missing stamps in your passports, it will be to your advantage to secure your CBSA travel history yourself. Some folks are actually smart enough to access their CBSA history prior to submitting so they can compare and verify what they recall for their travels and what the CBSA has in their records. It is not uncommon for people to lose track of short trips they did (especially by land) and realize after application has already been submitted. In a situation like this, it's more like "Better late than sorry" (that is, postpone submission until you verified all your supporting documents including residency calculation are well in order.
You can obtain your travel history from CBSA (only reentries to Canada are reported) online through this link:
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/agency-agence/reports-rapports/pia-efvp/atip-aiprp/req-dem-priv-eng.html
It takes a minimum of 30 days for CBSA to provide your history, so planning ahead to request this before CIC begins asking for more residency proof will benefit your application.
Some notes about the CBSA request:
1. The request is free and can be done online or through a letter
2. You have the option of receiving the result on paper or by email
3. Select that you're making the request under the "PRIVACY ACT" - this is for us requesting information about ourselves; the alternative choice "Access to Information Act" is used by third parties like the CIC to access information on other people
4. Which agency to request info from (this is a question in the online request): CBSA (not CIC!!!)
5. You need to write a small statement specifically requesting your travel records with CBSA for a given period (say the last four years considered in the citizenship application; some who like to be clearly transparent with CIC opt to until the present so all travels even after citizenship application are known to CIC).
6. You need to scan your PR card (both side), biographical pages of your relevant passports (both current and expired in which you traveled), and submit it online as a PDF document (no more than 2 MB size).
The less you leave room for doubt on your residency/absences, the better.
When applying for the report, make sure to provide passport number, uci and even vehicle number plate if you often travel by car. Many times when someone crosses the border by car, the officer will record the number plate rather than the previous number