I'll try to keep it short.
Started from Michigan, USA, Paid toll at US border and landed in Canada via Road through Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
First Police Booth at Canadian Border:
IO - What is the purpose of your visit?
Answer - To complete PR landing formalities.
IO - Where are you coming from?
Answer - Michigan, US.
IO - Where are you going?
Answer - Windsor Immigration office. Won't go any further than that.
IO - Who all are landing?
Answer - My son, wife and I.
IO - Can I have your identification documents?
Answer - Gave him just passports. He didn't ask for COPR or anything else.
IO - Are you moving today?
Answer - No Sir. I'll move at a later date.
IO - When are you returning back to US?
Answer - Today.
IO - Do you have any firearms or alcohol with you today?
Answer - No Sir!
IO then made some entries in his system and handed back the passports to me along with a yellow receipt and directed us to the main immigration building. He also notified his peers in the building to expect us.
Parked the car against the wall. That's exactly where the IO asked me to park the car. LOL
After getting out of the car, an office was already waiting for us outside the building.
He asked the same question. What is the purpose of your visit, blah blah blah. Took our passports and asked us to enter the building from a different gate.
We entered the building at 6:45 AM EST.
He then asked us for other documents. I gave him COPR, GTF and Goods Accompanying along with additional passport size pics and Bank Statements for PoF.
He said that since his shift was getting over at 7:00 AM, he'll only work on the first part which was to verify our details and complete the COPR formalities. He told his other colleague to work on Goods to follow and other stuff. The colleague nodded his head in affirmative.
He then started to ask some questions about address in Canada. I told him that the address was of my friend and I have no intention to move there immediately.
He asked when are you planning to land for good. I said once my current project gets over, may be by the end of this year. He said ok, good.
He asked me what I did in US, employer name, where I lived, etc. Gave him all the answers.
Him and his other colleague were working on our COPR forms.
I would like to point out that during all this conversation I'd had with the officers, they both kept saying that we were so organized and that we had everything that was required for completing landing formalities pre-organized.
I want to take ZERO credit of all that because I could do all of this because of this forum and precisely one man Qorax. He's the man. I followed all his instructions and prepared my documentation accordingly and bingo, no issues anywhere. Not a single one. Thank you Qorax. You are awesome bro!
I was also helped by other very helpful members of this forum so thank you to all of you gentlemen too.
Once they were done working on COPR, they had us sign on the forms and told us that the signatures had to be between the white area. I signed for myself and for my son who is only 27 months old. And my wife signed on her form.
They asked us if we had any criminal background. We said no. He also asked my son (2 years old) the same question and my son was like, "what are you talking about"?
No I am just kidding. Obviously my son couldn't understand the question and the officers were also joking.
After the signatures, they attached the copy of COPR on our passports and told us that we can't fly to Canada but we can visit Canada as many times as we want by road as long as we have a copy of COPR attached to our passports. I told them thank you for their help. They one more time told me good job with the documentation.
Moving on, another officer took over (after the previous officer's shift got over) and he already knew that we had everything ready with us (GTF, Accompanying, Bank Statements, etc). He was taking help of his female colleague and they both were impressed with everything and kept whispering that we did a good job and were so organized.
The officer asked us to take a seat and let him work on the forms. He kept verifying the documents. In the mean time I visited him a couple of times to remind him that I hadn't signed any documents yet because I wanted to sign in front of him. He said he noticed that and told me to not to worry about it. I visited him again and reminded him about my Proof of Funds bank statements because I knew he hadn't looked at it. But he said that don't worry about it.
He did ask though how much cash we were carrying. I told him we had USD $366. He noted it and entered in his system.
Once he was satisfied with the documentation, he called me and told me to sign on both GTF and Goods Accompanying forms at the bottom. He, however, told me that he would not be able to stamp the supporting documents such has pictures of high value items and attached spreadsheet which had all the items listed because I was going to move to Canada at a later date. He said that if he put a stamp on the docs, it would mean that I have already imported my stuff today which wasn't the case.
He gave it a second thought and said that he could stamp the copy he was going to keep but he won't be able to stamp my copy because of the reason he mentioned above. I said ok as long it's not going be an issue in future. He said there won't be any issue because they already have a stamped copy and all I have to do is carry my documents when I finally land and they'll match it with their records which made perfect sense to me.
In the mean time the lady co-worker had almost started working on RIV, whatever it means. But I literally stopped her and told her that since I was not moving today, I didn't want to go through the car import procedure n all and that I'll do it at a later date. She gave it a thought and said OK, No Problem. And in the double arrow section on B4 for, she put "RIV Pending".
The other officer was listening to our conversation and he said that "I am hoping that you'll be landing here some day for good and are not completing your landing formalities just so that you won't lose your PR status". I said, I promise Sir, I'll land here soon.
That's it, he gave us back our passports, our copy of GTF and Goods Accompanying and said that we were all set and have a good day. I said, "thank you for your time and help Sir and have a great day". He started to move back to do something but I stopped him to ask if could confirm the address he put in his system. He confirmed that he put the exact same address that I'd put on the B4 forms.
Then I asked him if he needed my passport size pics. He said don't worry. We'll use the ones which are on COPR.
We exchanged thank you one more time but this time he stopped us and said, "BTW..you guys did an awesome job with your documentation. You saved us and yourselves a lot of time". I just said Thank You Sir and smiled and left the building.
Oh, he also checked my car manufacturing date on my car just to find out if I could move my car as is or if it would require any modification. He said that since my car was manufactured in November 1997 and if I decided to move after November 2012 (after 15 years of car manufacturing date), I'll not have to do any major modifications. Only minor that would cost us no more than $200. I said, OK, good to know that.
He also warned me that if the Canadian address I had put in, in the forms didn't exist or will have any issues then I could be in trouble and my PR cards may not be delivered which could become another major issue. I told him that the address is of my co-worker and he owns the house. He said that's great.
He also told me where the "Service Canada" building was which was pretty much around the corner with in .2 or .3 miles of immigration office.
I was out of Immigration Office by 7:20 AM but since Service Canada office opens at 8:30 AM, I had to wait outside City Hall (Service Canada office is in this building). I was sitting in my car when I noticed a board on which it was clearly written that it was a paid parking lot and any illegal parkings will be towed and fined for violation. I immediately recalled reading about it on the forum that somebody was fined for it. I put in $2 USD (all coins because the machine didn't accept notes), purchased the ticket and put it on my dashboard (as instructed on the parking fees board).
At 8:35 AM, we entered the Service Canada office. There were already few local people standing in line. When our number came, I gave this lady at reception all 3 forms which we already had filled out. She asked for identification and proof that we landed today. I gave her passports and COPR which was already attached to the passport. She verified few things in her system and asked us to wait for our number. Our names were called in 15 minutes. It was very easy process. The lady first verified our legal status. She then entered all our information in their system from the form. Once each form was filled out, she spelled our names to confirm she had it correctly entered and she also confirmed mailing the address. I also gave her my US cell number because she didn't want to enter my Canadian friend's number.
Finally she had us sign at the bottom of the document which had our SIN written. That's it, all three of us had our SIN in hand. She also educated us to not to give SIN anywhere even to the credit card companies, blah blah blah. We knew about it because we live in US so know the rules. We said thank you to her and came out of building to get back to US.
US Border:
Here was my first blunder. I parked my car 2 feet before the CBP officer's booth. He was an afro-american guy (no racism or sarcasm intended). He stared at me and in a loud and rude voice said "why did you park your car there?". I said, "Sir, this is my first time here so I wasn't sure where to park. I apologize for the mistake.". He said ok.
BTW - All below questions were asked in an extremely rude manner. I am not exaggerating at all, I swear.
CBP - Why are you here today?
Answer - I am returning back to US.
CBP - What was the purpose of visiting Canada?
Answer - To complete landing formalities?
CBP - Will you be moving to Canada?
Answer - I may, I haven't decided yet.
CBP - Then why did you go to Canada today?
Answer - I chose to land today because I had to complete the landing formality before a specific date. If I hadn't done that, I would have lost my opportunity to become Canadian PR. I still had time before the expiration date on my forms but since I did't want do this during winters (bad weather), I decided to do it today.
CBP - Can I have your IDs?
Answer - Sure, gave him all the passports including my old passport which had L1 stamping. Also gave him current I-94 and I797 (H1 and H1).
CBP - He asked various questions like when did I come to US, where did I work, where did I live, asked my wife same question that why was she visiting Canada, etc?
Answer - Gave him all the answers appropriately.
CBP - Do you have any food, firearms or alcohol?
Answer - I have some food but nothing else.
CBP - He then took 5 minutes to check all our information in his system and filled out a pink slip and asked us to follow him. It had "status" written in the comments section which means that we had issue with status and that they need to further investigate the issue.
I kind of knew that it was going to happen because my passport was not stamped for H1B visa.
I followed him and there were 2 other officers. They told me to shut off the car, leave the keys inside, take our identities (passports), leave everything else in the car and go inside their building. They didn't want us to look what they were doing but I knew they wanted to search my car in and out which they did eventually.
I entered the building and saw there were 20 more people sitting. I was like, holy cow, it's going to be full day here. But to my surprise, I was called by a lady officer in 35 minutes.
Lady Officer (LO) asked same questions, reason to visit USA - "I am returning". Where do you work, live, who is that lady, does she live with you? When did you come to US? On what visa? Who is your current employer, etc?
At no point did I tell her that I wanted to use AVR because I wanted her to take her time and come back with questions. She never gave me any indication that there was any issue. She kept looking at her screen, went to her back office (which was at the other side in the building), spoke with a couple of her senior looking colleagues. She asked for my and my wife's US license. I gave her my license and my wife's state ID card (she doesn't have license yet). She looked at it and asked me to sit down.
She then called me again after few minutes and said that I was all set and that whenever I'll visit my home country, I"ll have to get my passport stamped with current visa, i.e. H1B. I told here that I was aware of that. We then exchanged Thank you and said Good Bye.
I stopped again and asked her where were my keys. She said it should be in my car.
I went to my car and the keys were right there. I could clearly see that they had opened our bags. I had two laptops, few clothes, stroller, food items in separate bags, 2 GPS, etc. They looked at everything. They never told us whether they found something in car or not but the fact they didn't handcuff me means they didn't find anything
I didn't ask the Lady Officer though whether she was allowing us to enter US via AVR. I just assumed she must have. I really cared less what she used. All I wanted was to be able to enter US ASAP which I was, thankfully!
And yes, while returning back we ordered Chole Bhature from a desi restaurant to celebrate our success
I meant to write a short story but ended up writing biography. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to cover as much as I could.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to post and I'll try to respond as quickly as I can.
On a side note, here is what I carried to Canada. Definitely some unnecessary documents but I just wanted to be on safer side, hence the extra weight.
For Canada:
Passports.
COPR (signed it in front of officer).
Goods to follow, B4 form. Followed Qorax's thread. Attached some pics for high value items, spreadsheet copies, Car Title copy.
Goods accompanying, B4 form. This was easy. Only attached 3-4 pics for my watch (little expensive), gold chain, rings, etc. Officer didn't even bother to take a look at it.
Bank Statements, Bank Verification Letter, ATM Receipt - They didn't look at anything but you should carry as much as you could to prove you have enough funds.
Passport Size Pics - They didn't take. I brought them back.
For re-entry in US
Passports (old and new one).
Current I797A (H1 and H4), I-94 both old (L1 and L2) and new ones (H1 and H4).
All my educational documents (never used).
All professional certifications (never used).
Employment Letter from Current Employer (never used).
All experience letters (never used).
SSN (never used).
License or State ID cards for all accompanying family members (obviously excluding minors) - I had to show this to the officer. This may or may not be required but always carry all your IDs to be on safer side.
Original Car Title (never used).
That's all. Good luck to everyone.
Thank you for reading my post. I hope you find it useful and informative.
Regards,
Started from Michigan, USA, Paid toll at US border and landed in Canada via Road through Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
First Police Booth at Canadian Border:
IO - What is the purpose of your visit?
Answer - To complete PR landing formalities.
IO - Where are you coming from?
Answer - Michigan, US.
IO - Where are you going?
Answer - Windsor Immigration office. Won't go any further than that.
IO - Who all are landing?
Answer - My son, wife and I.
IO - Can I have your identification documents?
Answer - Gave him just passports. He didn't ask for COPR or anything else.
IO - Are you moving today?
Answer - No Sir. I'll move at a later date.
IO - When are you returning back to US?
Answer - Today.
IO - Do you have any firearms or alcohol with you today?
Answer - No Sir!
IO then made some entries in his system and handed back the passports to me along with a yellow receipt and directed us to the main immigration building. He also notified his peers in the building to expect us.
Parked the car against the wall. That's exactly where the IO asked me to park the car. LOL
After getting out of the car, an office was already waiting for us outside the building.
He asked the same question. What is the purpose of your visit, blah blah blah. Took our passports and asked us to enter the building from a different gate.
We entered the building at 6:45 AM EST.
He then asked us for other documents. I gave him COPR, GTF and Goods Accompanying along with additional passport size pics and Bank Statements for PoF.
He said that since his shift was getting over at 7:00 AM, he'll only work on the first part which was to verify our details and complete the COPR formalities. He told his other colleague to work on Goods to follow and other stuff. The colleague nodded his head in affirmative.
He then started to ask some questions about address in Canada. I told him that the address was of my friend and I have no intention to move there immediately.
He asked when are you planning to land for good. I said once my current project gets over, may be by the end of this year. He said ok, good.
He asked me what I did in US, employer name, where I lived, etc. Gave him all the answers.
Him and his other colleague were working on our COPR forms.
I would like to point out that during all this conversation I'd had with the officers, they both kept saying that we were so organized and that we had everything that was required for completing landing formalities pre-organized.
I want to take ZERO credit of all that because I could do all of this because of this forum and precisely one man Qorax. He's the man. I followed all his instructions and prepared my documentation accordingly and bingo, no issues anywhere. Not a single one. Thank you Qorax. You are awesome bro!
I was also helped by other very helpful members of this forum so thank you to all of you gentlemen too.
Once they were done working on COPR, they had us sign on the forms and told us that the signatures had to be between the white area. I signed for myself and for my son who is only 27 months old. And my wife signed on her form.
They asked us if we had any criminal background. We said no. He also asked my son (2 years old) the same question and my son was like, "what are you talking about"?
No I am just kidding. Obviously my son couldn't understand the question and the officers were also joking.
After the signatures, they attached the copy of COPR on our passports and told us that we can't fly to Canada but we can visit Canada as many times as we want by road as long as we have a copy of COPR attached to our passports. I told them thank you for their help. They one more time told me good job with the documentation.
Moving on, another officer took over (after the previous officer's shift got over) and he already knew that we had everything ready with us (GTF, Accompanying, Bank Statements, etc). He was taking help of his female colleague and they both were impressed with everything and kept whispering that we did a good job and were so organized.
The officer asked us to take a seat and let him work on the forms. He kept verifying the documents. In the mean time I visited him a couple of times to remind him that I hadn't signed any documents yet because I wanted to sign in front of him. He said he noticed that and told me to not to worry about it. I visited him again and reminded him about my Proof of Funds bank statements because I knew he hadn't looked at it. But he said that don't worry about it.
He did ask though how much cash we were carrying. I told him we had USD $366. He noted it and entered in his system.
Once he was satisfied with the documentation, he called me and told me to sign on both GTF and Goods Accompanying forms at the bottom. He, however, told me that he would not be able to stamp the supporting documents such has pictures of high value items and attached spreadsheet which had all the items listed because I was going to move to Canada at a later date. He said that if he put a stamp on the docs, it would mean that I have already imported my stuff today which wasn't the case.
He gave it a second thought and said that he could stamp the copy he was going to keep but he won't be able to stamp my copy because of the reason he mentioned above. I said ok as long it's not going be an issue in future. He said there won't be any issue because they already have a stamped copy and all I have to do is carry my documents when I finally land and they'll match it with their records which made perfect sense to me.
In the mean time the lady co-worker had almost started working on RIV, whatever it means. But I literally stopped her and told her that since I was not moving today, I didn't want to go through the car import procedure n all and that I'll do it at a later date. She gave it a thought and said OK, No Problem. And in the double arrow section on B4 for, she put "RIV Pending".
The other officer was listening to our conversation and he said that "I am hoping that you'll be landing here some day for good and are not completing your landing formalities just so that you won't lose your PR status". I said, I promise Sir, I'll land here soon.
That's it, he gave us back our passports, our copy of GTF and Goods Accompanying and said that we were all set and have a good day. I said, "thank you for your time and help Sir and have a great day". He started to move back to do something but I stopped him to ask if could confirm the address he put in his system. He confirmed that he put the exact same address that I'd put on the B4 forms.
Then I asked him if he needed my passport size pics. He said don't worry. We'll use the ones which are on COPR.
We exchanged thank you one more time but this time he stopped us and said, "BTW..you guys did an awesome job with your documentation. You saved us and yourselves a lot of time". I just said Thank You Sir and smiled and left the building.
Oh, he also checked my car manufacturing date on my car just to find out if I could move my car as is or if it would require any modification. He said that since my car was manufactured in November 1997 and if I decided to move after November 2012 (after 15 years of car manufacturing date), I'll not have to do any major modifications. Only minor that would cost us no more than $200. I said, OK, good to know that.
He also warned me that if the Canadian address I had put in, in the forms didn't exist or will have any issues then I could be in trouble and my PR cards may not be delivered which could become another major issue. I told him that the address is of my co-worker and he owns the house. He said that's great.
He also told me where the "Service Canada" building was which was pretty much around the corner with in .2 or .3 miles of immigration office.
I was out of Immigration Office by 7:20 AM but since Service Canada office opens at 8:30 AM, I had to wait outside City Hall (Service Canada office is in this building). I was sitting in my car when I noticed a board on which it was clearly written that it was a paid parking lot and any illegal parkings will be towed and fined for violation. I immediately recalled reading about it on the forum that somebody was fined for it. I put in $2 USD (all coins because the machine didn't accept notes), purchased the ticket and put it on my dashboard (as instructed on the parking fees board).
At 8:35 AM, we entered the Service Canada office. There were already few local people standing in line. When our number came, I gave this lady at reception all 3 forms which we already had filled out. She asked for identification and proof that we landed today. I gave her passports and COPR which was already attached to the passport. She verified few things in her system and asked us to wait for our number. Our names were called in 15 minutes. It was very easy process. The lady first verified our legal status. She then entered all our information in their system from the form. Once each form was filled out, she spelled our names to confirm she had it correctly entered and she also confirmed mailing the address. I also gave her my US cell number because she didn't want to enter my Canadian friend's number.
Finally she had us sign at the bottom of the document which had our SIN written. That's it, all three of us had our SIN in hand. She also educated us to not to give SIN anywhere even to the credit card companies, blah blah blah. We knew about it because we live in US so know the rules. We said thank you to her and came out of building to get back to US.
US Border:
Here was my first blunder. I parked my car 2 feet before the CBP officer's booth. He was an afro-american guy (no racism or sarcasm intended). He stared at me and in a loud and rude voice said "why did you park your car there?". I said, "Sir, this is my first time here so I wasn't sure where to park. I apologize for the mistake.". He said ok.
BTW - All below questions were asked in an extremely rude manner. I am not exaggerating at all, I swear.
CBP - Why are you here today?
Answer - I am returning back to US.
CBP - What was the purpose of visiting Canada?
Answer - To complete landing formalities?
CBP - Will you be moving to Canada?
Answer - I may, I haven't decided yet.
CBP - Then why did you go to Canada today?
Answer - I chose to land today because I had to complete the landing formality before a specific date. If I hadn't done that, I would have lost my opportunity to become Canadian PR. I still had time before the expiration date on my forms but since I did't want do this during winters (bad weather), I decided to do it today.
CBP - Can I have your IDs?
Answer - Sure, gave him all the passports including my old passport which had L1 stamping. Also gave him current I-94 and I797 (H1 and H1).
CBP - He asked various questions like when did I come to US, where did I work, where did I live, asked my wife same question that why was she visiting Canada, etc?
Answer - Gave him all the answers appropriately.
CBP - Do you have any food, firearms or alcohol?
Answer - I have some food but nothing else.
CBP - He then took 5 minutes to check all our information in his system and filled out a pink slip and asked us to follow him. It had "status" written in the comments section which means that we had issue with status and that they need to further investigate the issue.
I kind of knew that it was going to happen because my passport was not stamped for H1B visa.
I followed him and there were 2 other officers. They told me to shut off the car, leave the keys inside, take our identities (passports), leave everything else in the car and go inside their building. They didn't want us to look what they were doing but I knew they wanted to search my car in and out which they did eventually.
I entered the building and saw there were 20 more people sitting. I was like, holy cow, it's going to be full day here. But to my surprise, I was called by a lady officer in 35 minutes.
Lady Officer (LO) asked same questions, reason to visit USA - "I am returning". Where do you work, live, who is that lady, does she live with you? When did you come to US? On what visa? Who is your current employer, etc?
At no point did I tell her that I wanted to use AVR because I wanted her to take her time and come back with questions. She never gave me any indication that there was any issue. She kept looking at her screen, went to her back office (which was at the other side in the building), spoke with a couple of her senior looking colleagues. She asked for my and my wife's US license. I gave her my license and my wife's state ID card (she doesn't have license yet). She looked at it and asked me to sit down.
She then called me again after few minutes and said that I was all set and that whenever I'll visit my home country, I"ll have to get my passport stamped with current visa, i.e. H1B. I told here that I was aware of that. We then exchanged Thank you and said Good Bye.
I stopped again and asked her where were my keys. She said it should be in my car.
I went to my car and the keys were right there. I could clearly see that they had opened our bags. I had two laptops, few clothes, stroller, food items in separate bags, 2 GPS, etc. They looked at everything. They never told us whether they found something in car or not but the fact they didn't handcuff me means they didn't find anything
I didn't ask the Lady Officer though whether she was allowing us to enter US via AVR. I just assumed she must have. I really cared less what she used. All I wanted was to be able to enter US ASAP which I was, thankfully!
And yes, while returning back we ordered Chole Bhature from a desi restaurant to celebrate our success
I meant to write a short story but ended up writing biography. Sorry for the long post but I wanted to cover as much as I could.
If anyone has any questions, please feel free to post and I'll try to respond as quickly as I can.
On a side note, here is what I carried to Canada. Definitely some unnecessary documents but I just wanted to be on safer side, hence the extra weight.
For Canada:
Passports.
COPR (signed it in front of officer).
Goods to follow, B4 form. Followed Qorax's thread. Attached some pics for high value items, spreadsheet copies, Car Title copy.
Goods accompanying, B4 form. This was easy. Only attached 3-4 pics for my watch (little expensive), gold chain, rings, etc. Officer didn't even bother to take a look at it.
Bank Statements, Bank Verification Letter, ATM Receipt - They didn't look at anything but you should carry as much as you could to prove you have enough funds.
Passport Size Pics - They didn't take. I brought them back.
For re-entry in US
Passports (old and new one).
Current I797A (H1 and H4), I-94 both old (L1 and L2) and new ones (H1 and H4).
All my educational documents (never used).
All professional certifications (never used).
Employment Letter from Current Employer (never used).
All experience letters (never used).
SSN (never used).
License or State ID cards for all accompanying family members (obviously excluding minors) - I had to show this to the officer. This may or may not be required but always carry all your IDs to be on safer side.
Original Car Title (never used).
That's all. Good luck to everyone.
Thank you for reading my post. I hope you find it useful and informative.
Regards,
