ottogutierrez said:
I am starting to look into applying for Citizenship but have a question regarding the physical presence in Canada.
I have traveled to the US several times but they were only day trips (i.e. enter US in the morning, come back by evening). My questions are:
- Do I have to count day trips (same day)
- I don't have exact records of every day trip to US, is there a way to find out? or Can I put an approximate on application?
The response by
Juney is accurate, the current application process does not require applicants to declare day trips to the U.S. in the initial residency calculation.
If the applicant is issued a Residency Questionnaire, however, CIC currently is requesting the applicant also declare day trips. While most applicants have no reason to anticipate they will be issued RQ, probably a good idea to know the number and, as best can be reconstructed, the dates of day trips, even though you do not declare them in the residency calculation submitted with the application.
Remember that a "day trip" is taken literally based on the calendar, so that it is only a day trip if the PR exits and returns to Canada on the same calendar day. Thus, a return one minute after midnight is
not a day trip, but must be declared and will count as an absence (even if, for example, it was a quick late-evening drive across the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls to have a cheap dinner at U.S. prices and get a tank full of inexpensive gas, but upon returning the PR does not clear the PIL booth before midnight, then it should be declared and will count).
Government records reflecting travel dates:
CBSA and U.S. border records can
help a PR reconstruct travel dates. They should not be relied upon exclusively. While they are ordinarily accurate, they are not necessarily complete. The applicant's travel declarations, in contrast, must be absolutely complete (except day trips).
A PR can request a copy of the CBSA travel history through the ATIP process. This is not complicated, takes around a month to get the results, and usually this will contain all or at least nearly all
entry into Canada dates. Again, while this is increasingly complete for most, it should not be relied upon to be absolutely complete.
Those who have traveled to the U.S. can also obtain similar records from the U.S. I have seen reports that this has gotten considerably easier and faster than it was a couple years ago. I requested records from the U.S. months before applying for citizenship (back in 2013) and did not receive the records until many months after I became a citizen (last year).
The U.S. records have been generally more complete going back a longer period of time than the CBSA records. But again, not a good idea to rely on them to be complete.
I have not kept current about the procedure to obtain the U.S. records.
My approach; partial declaration of day trips:
I had circumstances which raised the risk of RQ for me considerably, so I was a bit overly cautious and I did
partially declare day trips in my application. In fact, for each calendar year I declared one specific day trip (on a date I knew for certain) and in the "Reasons" box referred to it as one among X number of day trips I made that year (I did not have exact dates for each trip, but I did know how many I made each year). I made quite a few day trips each year, was anxious about RQ, I recognized that if CIC accessed my CBSA travel history the dates of entry for day trips would all pop up, so I wanted to be out in front of any questions about whether I had failed to declare some trips. At my interview the interviewer asked if I declared all trips outside Canada and I answered that there were day trips I made reference to in the residency calculation. She acknowledged this, saying something like "yes, I see trips declared with zero days absence." I took the oath two days later.
For most applicants even such partial reporting of day trips is probably entirely unnecessary.
I separately had two short trips to the U.S. where I did not get back across the border before midnight, so of course those I fully declared as a trip abroad, one day's absence.
