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Entering Canada with an expired PR card - urgent please help.

Mysongoku

Newbie
Dec 7, 2017
9
0
You could try for H&C. It's all very subjective as to whether they will accept it or not, similar to crossing the land border. It all depends on who reviews the application. The issue with a PRTD is that it allows them the time to sit back and really scrutinize the reasons (there is no timeline for a response on a PRTD). When you deal with a cross border entry, they tendency seems to lean towards less scrutiny.
Again, from my perspective, with an H&C application, the first thing that would cross my mind (were I the reviewing officer) is "what has changed now with your fathers condition that allows you to come back, when it prevented you before this returning"?
Ultimately, I wouldn't recommend renouncing a PR to anyone, with out first making an attempt at re-entry. Personally, I would attempt a land crossing first, before a PRTD (for the reasons above). If it works great, if it doesn't at least you tried. Be aware, that with any entry into Canada, even if you get in successfully, it brings your residency under scrutiny every time. So if your father is sick, be prepared not to see him for several years until you are back in RO compliance.
So you mean I should go through the boarder and explain to them , instead of applying a PRTD with H&C? Because I am pretty far away from you guys, but if it’s better to show up in border then I will do it.
 

Buletruck

VIP Member
May 18, 2015
6,880
2,713
Regardless of whether they report you or not, you can enter Canada. Take your medical proof with you to present to the CBSA at the POE for your H&C. If they accept that, great, if they don't they will give you a 44(1) report if they decide to report you. You can appeal the 44(1) within 30 days. If you appeal, make sure you establish yourself in Canada (work, volunteer, integrate into society) as it has a bearing on appeals. The more established the better the results. But there is no guarantee it will work, so be prepared.
If you apply for a PRTD and they refuse, you can appeal, but there is no right of entry guaranteed with that. You would have to await the outcome in your home/current country of residence.

follow the link and search residency obligation. It will give you an idea of the chances and reasons they accept or dismiss appeals.

https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/irb/
 
R

rish888

Guest
I say land border over PRTD without a doubt in my mind.

Best of luck!
 

Mysongoku

Newbie
Dec 7, 2017
9
0
Ok thanks Buletruck, You are a really helpful, you solved a lot of my question marks from my head, thank you so much, you are a good man, hope you have a good day
 

canuck78

VIP Member
Jun 18, 2017
55,710
13,559
Depending where you are coming from it is a big commitment but your only choice although there isn't a
But I am like 15 years away from Canada, so I just worry it’s a waste of time even try doing it.
It is up to you to decide whether you travel knowing the odds are not in your favour.
 

blacks100

Newbie
Mar 7, 2018
2
0
Hello,
We left Canada in 2013 with expired PR cards.
We applied for renewal and got letter from CIC to visit them but since we traveled out we were unable to go to CIC.
Since then we didn't return to Canada due to unavoidable circumstances back home. Our parents illness and their passing away.
Can we now return to Canada via Niagara, USA by rental car?
What can we expect at the border??
Please advise.
Hi Fira
Did you enter via the border and what was the outcome.
 

deadinside

Full Member
Mar 2, 2024
23
4
Overall: the information you disclose does not reveal what your current status is (landing paper is vague and ambiguous and in context of your other descriptions not clear in multiple respects).

My sense is that you would need to make a formal application to the IRCC or CBSA to definitively ascertain what your current status is, such as by just showing up at a PoE and seeking entry (while many do not realize it, just showing up at the PoE is considered to be an application seeking permission to physically enter Canada, and even Canadian citizens are required to make an application to enter Canada in order to legally enter Canada). Problem, of course, is that if you are a PR, any application to CBSA or IRCC is likely to trigger a formal decision to terminate that status, given the extent of your absence from Canada.

As noted otherwise and often in this forum, there is some chance that a traveler with a visa-exempt passport who arrives at a land border crossing entry point (PoE) into Canada might be waived into Canada without being examined as to PR status or compliance with the PR Residency Obligation. Sure, there are ways to improve the odds some, or more to how these things tend to go, lots of ways to reduce the odds considerably (arriving with a trailer full of household goods or otherwise loudly display an intention to move into Canada to live, for one obvious example). Beyond the obvious, and oft discussed in this and other forums (like not showing up at the border with a trailer full of household goods), I tend to not go into how to manipulate the system. Which leads to some caveats:
I'm not sure I understand your point.

Did you mean to say that arriving with a trailer full of goods and displaying an intention to move permanently INCREASES the odds IN-FAVOR of being questioned and reported OR

does it DECREASE the odds of being questioned in secondary and reported?
 

armoured

VIP Member
Feb 1, 2015
17,324
8,922
Did you mean to say that arriving with a trailer full of goods and displaying an intention to move permanently INCREASES the odds IN-FAVOR of being questioned and reported OR
It increases the odds of a secondary/more detailed examination of your residency status and residency obligation.

This should be obvious but by showing that you are MOVING to Canada, you are waving a big red flag that says you are not just a visitor arriving (i.e. they will examine on what basis you are moving to Canada, and if as a PR, what your compliance with the resdiency obligation is - if you're moving to Canada, then more likely you are not compliant because you're not .... residing in Canada).

We should note: they have computers. It is increasingly frequent and trending consistently towards complete coverage of scanning and checking ALL passports/identities and running them against databases. And if you became a PR in, say, the last ten years (probably more like 20) - you are almost certainly in their database. The higher-probability is that you come up and whether or not they decide to go into the RO issue is ... basically not knowable.

Travellers may not even know that they are being database-checked and their passport details scanned. The tombstone pages are almost all machine readable and very easily scanned (even those that aren't compliant with the machine-readable standards can be optically scanned). More and more have RFID chips in them that can be read at a smallish distance so even those who think they were 'waved through' had their data checked. And yes, they do this more and more at the land crossings as well.

In short, I think a higher probability thye'll identify you as a PR, and if they decide to look at entries/exits, that you don't appear to have been in Canada much. I have no idea what that means for prob they'll make an issue of your RO.
 

dpenabill

VIP Member
Apr 2, 2010
6,438
3,183
I'm not sure I understand your point.

Did you mean to say that arriving with a trailer full of goods and displaying an intention to move permanently INCREASES the odds IN-FAVOR of being questioned and reported OR

does it DECREASE the odds of being questioned in secondary and reported?
The post you quote is many years old, before some significant changes in the extent of travel history records CBSA border officials could readily access, before COVID and how that changed the general landscape of Port-of-Entry examinations and RO enforcement (which includes the post-Covid phase in which it appears RO enforcement has been increased), and was about someone who was not at all sure what their Canadian status was, who had become a Permanent Resident BEFORE the current PR scheme was implemented (becoming a PR more than a quarter century ago, in the previous millennium), and who had been outside Canada for MORE than 15 years. In other words, despite some similarities, a scenario very different than yours.

I think my comments then (as best I can recall, noting again that was more than six years ago), addressing the difference it might make arriving with a trailer full of household goods, were in reference to there being "some chance" (emphasis on just some, and emphasis it is about just the chance), a PR arriving at a land border crossing, presenting a visa-exempt passport, might be waived through the PoE without much questioning. Not so likely if they are hauling a trailer full of household goods broadcasting an intent to move into Canada.

That some (perhaps more back then than now) have a chance of being waived through was proffered as a possibility, in contrast to my primary observation, that just arriving at the border was "likely to trigger a formal decision to terminate [their PR] status, given the extent of your absence from Canada."

Other forum members subsequently and appropriately further addressed the issue of misrepresentation if in the course of the PoE examination there was an attempt to overtly deceive border officials.

Summary or take-away (or "the point" of the comments many years ago in reference to a PR absent from Canada for a decade and a half): There was some chance (back then, and probably still though perhaps less chance now) a long-absent PR might be waived through the border without questioning related to their status as a PR or as to RO compliance, but if they arrived at the border obviously intending to come to live in Canada, rather than just a temporary stay, the chances of that would be even less, actually far less (nearly none, if not none). In other words, hauling a trailer full of household goods means it is almost certain (maybe certain) there will be a referral to Secondary.


OTHER SCENARIOS:

There is your scenario, for example. Regarding that, I have been following the discussion about your situation in the other thread. Beyond observing you are obviously at risk of RO enforcement proceedings, it is a quite complex situation, lots of variables and contingencies at play with more than a few very difficult if not impossible to assess elements. I do not disagree much with what others there have offered . . . allowing I do differ in some particular details and of course I disagree that whether a Removal Order is issued at the border is about "simply the mood of the CBSA officer," since a Removal Order is only issued if three officers have made decisions leading to that outcome: the PIL officer referring the traveler to Secondary; the examining officer in Secondary deciding to prepare a 44(1) Report; and a third officer independently reviewing the Report and deciding to issue a Removal Order. Depending on the availability of time, I may try to offer some further input there, but basically you are at significant risk of being issued a Removal Order at the Port-of-Entry and then having to appeal in order to TRY to save your PR status, and any effort to forecast the outcome is largely guessing. For you it may be mostly about can you afford to take your chances, and is that worth it.

Otherwise, the range of other somewhat similar scenarios is so varied, it is very difficult if not near impossible to generalize much about how things tend to go.

For example, @armoured referenced that arriving with a trailer of household goods increases (well, almost guarantees) a referral to Secondary, and thus at least some inquiry into the traveler's status as a PR. That is the other side of the coin I described above, the chance that the Primary Inspection Line (PIL) just waives the traveler into Canada; basically no chance of a waive through if hauling household goods broadcasting intent to come to Canada to stay.

But there is much more to the hauling-household-goods or not example. Hauling household goods is more likely (way more likely) to trigger a referral to Secondary. But in Secondary how it might influence what happens can vary considerably. For example, for a PR who landed less than five years ago and is only a few weeks, perhaps a few months in breach of the RO, arriving at the PoE obviously intending to move here (not just visit) could make a big positive difference. In contrast, for a PR with a far more egregious history of non-compliance with the RO, the appearance of an intent to come here to stay may not carry much weight at all in the practical does-this-PR-deserve-a-chance-to-stay calculation underlying many RO breach related H&C cases.

Given the nature and extent of your absence from Canada, it is very, very difficult to forecast how CBSA officers will assess your situation.
 
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