Hi I just landed in August 2019 so I would like to share my experience:
- Landed at Rainbow bridge for PR confirmation
- Rainbow bridge, Lewiston, Peace bridge still have the restriction program which only allow u to flagpole on certain times and days of the week and they only process enough cases that the total would take up to 2 hrs of wait, despite the opposition from the law association of Canada. (No latest news with regards to the "protest" since 2018).
- 24/7 flagpole processing, you could go to Kingston or Windsor. However, would take 14-16 hrs of waiting.
So I hired a private driver departing from Toronto at 4:30 am. The driver forgot his passport, so it took us a while to get it but we still arrived early at 6:30 am. We started driving to the bridge for the flagpole and returned to the Canada side, thought that officer at the Canada gate would still let us in the office and wait till they actually process ur case at 8 am. The gate office still asked for all of the papers then said that we had to try again around 7:30 because it was too early.
-> SO don't drive across the bridge too early.
I retired the private driver and decided to walk across the bridge instead of using the car. OMG paid $1 for the turnstile and already seeing people lining up on this Canada side a lot at 7 ish. I quickly walked to the US side for the paper and came back. I was around the 28th case on the line already.
At 8 am, they started to let people in. At the 7th case, they started to tell people that they are not taking any more people. The officer argument was they are CBSA which is separate from CIC and only help them with some immigration work so they could not take all. "If CIC asks you to go to the border, tell them to do their job" LOL To me this is a basic governance failure of assigning overlapping authorities. The officer also said that he didn't know if they would open the flagpole within the day or not but yesterday they did.
OMG.... I was googling how to get to Windsor or Kingston to redirect my plan.... Then they asked if anyone else doing PR and some other people and I got in for processing. Thank god!!!! I was so close. All other people for work permit didn't get their things done. I met an Indian girl on the line while waiting who booked a hotel and stayed overnight for this. She also took a GO train from Brampton which require a short interchange and u have to walk to the next bus. She did not walk quickly enough for the change and ended up paying 200 for an uber to get to Niagra. OMG. But she could not get her work permit processed. Sis, if you are reading this, I hope you get it done.
The officer gave me the yellow paper and asked me to take the doc to the office across the road for it to be processed. Took me an hr for everything to get done.
This is like a hunger game. If you need to flagpole, go to Kingston or Windsor instead.
Good luck everyone!
P/S: some chinese forums also suggested Sarnia, easier processing, 24/7, still long wait tho.
- Landed at Rainbow bridge for PR confirmation
- Rainbow bridge, Lewiston, Peace bridge still have the restriction program which only allow u to flagpole on certain times and days of the week and they only process enough cases that the total would take up to 2 hrs of wait, despite the opposition from the law association of Canada. (No latest news with regards to the "protest" since 2018).
- 24/7 flagpole processing, you could go to Kingston or Windsor. However, would take 14-16 hrs of waiting.
So I hired a private driver departing from Toronto at 4:30 am. The driver forgot his passport, so it took us a while to get it but we still arrived early at 6:30 am. We started driving to the bridge for the flagpole and returned to the Canada side, thought that officer at the Canada gate would still let us in the office and wait till they actually process ur case at 8 am. The gate office still asked for all of the papers then said that we had to try again around 7:30 because it was too early.
-> SO don't drive across the bridge too early.
I retired the private driver and decided to walk across the bridge instead of using the car. OMG paid $1 for the turnstile and already seeing people lining up on this Canada side a lot at 7 ish. I quickly walked to the US side for the paper and came back. I was around the 28th case on the line already.
At 8 am, they started to let people in. At the 7th case, they started to tell people that they are not taking any more people. The officer argument was they are CBSA which is separate from CIC and only help them with some immigration work so they could not take all. "If CIC asks you to go to the border, tell them to do their job" LOL To me this is a basic governance failure of assigning overlapping authorities. The officer also said that he didn't know if they would open the flagpole within the day or not but yesterday they did.
OMG.... I was googling how to get to Windsor or Kingston to redirect my plan.... Then they asked if anyone else doing PR and some other people and I got in for processing. Thank god!!!! I was so close. All other people for work permit didn't get their things done. I met an Indian girl on the line while waiting who booked a hotel and stayed overnight for this. She also took a GO train from Brampton which require a short interchange and u have to walk to the next bus. She did not walk quickly enough for the change and ended up paying 200 for an uber to get to Niagra. OMG. But she could not get her work permit processed. Sis, if you are reading this, I hope you get it done.
The officer gave me the yellow paper and asked me to take the doc to the office across the road for it to be processed. Took me an hr for everything to get done.
This is like a hunger game. If you need to flagpole, go to Kingston or Windsor instead.
Good luck everyone!
P/S: some chinese forums also suggested Sarnia, easier processing, 24/7, still long wait tho.
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