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Saturday, April 01, 2017

Canadians Report More Scrutiny And Rejection At U.S. Border Checkpoints

Church volunteers on their way from Ontario to New Jersey were stopped at the U.S.-Canada border and turned away.

So were Canadian nurses who work at a hospital in Detroit.

Scores of Canadians say they've been refused entry at U.S. border checkpoints in recent weeks, and their stories have gotten a lot of attention.

At 4,000 miles, the U.S.-Canada line is the longest unprotected land border in the world, and it's relatively easy for Canadians to visit the U.S.; most don't require visas.

But immigration lawyers on both sides of the border say officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection, or CBP, have gotten more aggressive in their questioning of Canadian citizens, and about who they're letting into the country, since President Trump took office.

"Definitely things have changed on the northern border," said Heather Segal, an immigration attorney in Toronto. She said CBP agents are "denying people, erring on the side of denial, slowing people down and preventing people from getting into the United States ... with this notion by CBP that this is how they're supposed to be behaving right now."

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We entered Canada via NY in 2000 for a little vacation. Canadian BP was very pleasant. A dog barked at us so they asked to search our car, we complied. They found nothing, we were on our way with a nice apology. Came back three days later US BP were rude and very unpleasant. We were doing nothing wrong but they sure tried their hardest to hassle us though. We made it home finally and will never leave the country again. What a hassle!