My wife and I are CoPR holders in Vancouver and we need to go to Seattle for urgent issues so finally we decided to book a flight to Seattle, staying there for 2-3 days, and then come back to landing. The overall process is much smoother than we expected. TL;DR: It is possible for inland CoPR holder with valid US visa to take a round-trip flight to US and land PR status.
Disclamer: This is just based on our own investigation and experience. Please consult your immigration lawyer for any legal advice.
We have US L1/L2 visas and we took a YVR-SEA flight on Saturday morning and at Vancouver's CBP checkpoint, no COVID-related question was asked. The officer just asked where we live, the reason of traveling to US and why we were in Canada. Then he recorded our biometric information and let us pass. This is somehow in my expectation because the US-Canada border closure, under the interpretation of US, only applies to the land border. The air travel from Canada to US is not restricted at all.
When we took our flight on Monday from Seattle to Vancouver, the Delta Airlines agent scanned our PR Visas and passports, confirmed that we live in Canada, then printed our boarding passes.
After landing at YVR, the first checkpoint is to fill a federal form of COVID-19 questionnaire. It can be done either on paper or using mobile app ArriveCan. It asked about our address and phone number. All questions are yes/no question in this questionnaire, mainly about self-declaration of COVID symptons and confiming the availability of quarantine residence for 14 days.
After completing this questionnaire, we then headed the main lobby of border checkpoint. Before the checkpoint there are many self-serving machines that people declare of what they are bringing into Canada. YVR redesigned the system so now it also asks for COVID-19 symptons etc. Again these are just yes/no questions for self reporting. One thing to note is that, for the purpose of entering Canada, you need to select Immigrant, not work/study. At the checkpoint, we said we are landing PR and the only question the officer asked was where we travelled from. He didn't ask any other question to check if the travel is essential. We showed the officer our passports, CoPRs and the receipt we got from the machine, he then told us we need to quarantine for 14 days and the fines and punishments for violation. He confirmed with us that we have proper place to quarantine and proper ways to get groceries and medicines. Then he gave us a handout of quarantine information and instructed us to go to the immigration office after the checkpoint.
At the immigration office, we gave the officer our passports and CoPRs, they confirmed the information on CoPR with us and let us sign on the CoPRs. A mailing address is also left on the CoPR for PR card shipping. The officer told us it may take more than 3 months to get the PR card but the exact time is not clear.
So now we successfully entered Canada and landed PR. There is yet another provincial checkpoint which asked again about COVID symptons, place to quarantine, and also asked how we would travel to our destination. We parked our car in YVR parkade so it won't be neccessary to take public transport. Note that you will need to fill a provincial form as well and leave qurantine addess and phone number and BC government is supposed to make follow-up calls during the quarantine period. Don't miss calls otherwise the police may come to your doorstep (according to some news...).
Then we exited the airport and drove home. Now I am typing this post and starting the 14-day quarantine. We are not allowed to step outside our door step so we will order everything online.
Hope this post will help those who want to land PR during this pandemic. My take is for CBSA officer, landing is essential travel for CoPR holders coming from outside Canada. If you come from US, you don't need anything else. If you come from rest of the world, you may need to satisfy one of the exemptions to board on a flight.
Disclamer: This is just based on our own investigation and experience. Please consult your immigration lawyer for any legal advice.
We have US L1/L2 visas and we took a YVR-SEA flight on Saturday morning and at Vancouver's CBP checkpoint, no COVID-related question was asked. The officer just asked where we live, the reason of traveling to US and why we were in Canada. Then he recorded our biometric information and let us pass. This is somehow in my expectation because the US-Canada border closure, under the interpretation of US, only applies to the land border. The air travel from Canada to US is not restricted at all.
When we took our flight on Monday from Seattle to Vancouver, the Delta Airlines agent scanned our PR Visas and passports, confirmed that we live in Canada, then printed our boarding passes.
After landing at YVR, the first checkpoint is to fill a federal form of COVID-19 questionnaire. It can be done either on paper or using mobile app ArriveCan. It asked about our address and phone number. All questions are yes/no question in this questionnaire, mainly about self-declaration of COVID symptons and confiming the availability of quarantine residence for 14 days.
After completing this questionnaire, we then headed the main lobby of border checkpoint. Before the checkpoint there are many self-serving machines that people declare of what they are bringing into Canada. YVR redesigned the system so now it also asks for COVID-19 symptons etc. Again these are just yes/no questions for self reporting. One thing to note is that, for the purpose of entering Canada, you need to select Immigrant, not work/study. At the checkpoint, we said we are landing PR and the only question the officer asked was where we travelled from. He didn't ask any other question to check if the travel is essential. We showed the officer our passports, CoPRs and the receipt we got from the machine, he then told us we need to quarantine for 14 days and the fines and punishments for violation. He confirmed with us that we have proper place to quarantine and proper ways to get groceries and medicines. Then he gave us a handout of quarantine information and instructed us to go to the immigration office after the checkpoint.
At the immigration office, we gave the officer our passports and CoPRs, they confirmed the information on CoPR with us and let us sign on the CoPRs. A mailing address is also left on the CoPR for PR card shipping. The officer told us it may take more than 3 months to get the PR card but the exact time is not clear.
So now we successfully entered Canada and landed PR. There is yet another provincial checkpoint which asked again about COVID symptons, place to quarantine, and also asked how we would travel to our destination. We parked our car in YVR parkade so it won't be neccessary to take public transport. Note that you will need to fill a provincial form as well and leave qurantine addess and phone number and BC government is supposed to make follow-up calls during the quarantine period. Don't miss calls otherwise the police may come to your doorstep (according to some news...).
Then we exited the airport and drove home. Now I am typing this post and starting the 14-day quarantine. We are not allowed to step outside our door step so we will order everything online.
Hope this post will help those who want to land PR during this pandemic. My take is for CBSA officer, landing is essential travel for CoPR holders coming from outside Canada. If you come from US, you don't need anything else. If you come from rest of the world, you may need to satisfy one of the exemptions to board on a flight.
