I've read on another forum that this has happened before. When a new immigrant has admitted to intention to leave Canada soon (which is within his or her rights), the immgration officer has refused to process the PR card application and has informed the immigrant that it would have to be applied on permanent return to Canada.
However the rudeness that Melv received is unwarranted.
I didn't get a warm reception at my first landing, however the attitude was at least cool and polite which is OK with me (they probably do this a hundred times a day, day after day). And all immigration officials that I spoke with did say "Welcome to Canada".
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Regards - ezrider
Quote:
Orginally posted by Melv
Hi everyone,
Just wanted to let you know about the humiliating experience my wife and I had last November when we \"landed\" in Canada from the U.S. through the border at Windsor. We were given only six weeks on our visa to come to Canada. Because my wife still had a contract to complete in the U.S., we decided to cross the border for a few days, establish our landing, and return to the U.S. (Our lawyer said this would be okay.) We arrived at the border at about 9 p.m. on a Saturday night. When we went to the immigration counters, I immediately heard one immigration officer, an older woman who was going to serve us, turn to another officer and say, \"Oh, you're lucky you didn't get them.\" I'm not sure if it was our appearance that turned her off, or the fact that she realized immediately that we were coming as PRs and she'd have a lot of paperwork to do. Anyway, she spoke to us very rudely, like we were dirt. She asked for my wife's H-1 and when she found out that it was valid until Oct. 2005, she asked angrily, \"Are you moving to Canada now or going back?\" Because of her tone, we were afraid that we were doing something wrong and we didn't know what to say. My wife finally said that she needed to work in the U.S. until Oct. and tried to explain our situation. The woman didn't want to listen to our explanation and said to my wife, \"Just go and sit down. I don't want to listen to you. I'll process your papers, but I won't apply for your PR card.\" As a man, I felt terrible, standing there and listening to someone talk so rudely to my wife, but I couldn't say anything, because I didn't want to upset this seemingly all-powerful officer.
A Pakistani couple we met outside told us that they had a similar experience with another immigration officer. It left a very bad taste in our mouths and since it was our first taste of our new country, it was doubly distasteful. But we told ourselves that we shouldn't let one rude person spoil our impression of an entire country. Every country has rude people and friendly people. In an ideal world, the immigration officer would smile and say, \"Welcome to Canada\" and make you feel good about moving here.
I hope others are a little more prepared for this than we were. The funny thing is, my wife thought we'd have an easy time with the Candian border officers but she had some anxiety about the American officers upon our return. The exact opposite happened.
Melv
What I write may be generic, as each person has a unique experience and opinion.
Visa officers/immigration officers and border guards are trained to be terse, diplomatic, but business like. Coming from a culture like India, this comes as rude and ill mannered. I have myself crossed the border several times from here to the US and back. The questions are always the same - about the intention to travel, the period of stay and what we bring into the country.
I have come across the most serious and business like immigration officers at the border. They are trained to deal with travellers, in a business like fashion (that's part of their job). Also we must appreciate that they sometimes get tired talking to people, questioning them, trying to weed out unwanted elements.......... the list goes on.
I guess we too could lose our cool, if we were an immigration officer.
Quote:
Orginally posted by STHIRU18
What I write may be generic, as each person has a unique experience and opinion.
Visa officers/immigration officers and border guards are trained to be terse, diplomatic, but business like. Coming from a culture like India, this comes as rude and ill mannered. I have myself crossed the border several times from here to the US and back. The questions are always the same - about the intention to travel, the period of stay and what we bring into the country.
I have come across the most serious and business like immigration officers at the border. They are trained to deal with travellers, in a business like fashion (that's part of their job). Also we must appreciate that they sometimes get tired talking to people, questioning them, trying to weed out unwanted elements.......... the list goes on.
I guess we too could lose our cool, if we were an immigration officer.
If you had been there, you would know that there was no excuse for her conduct. I'm fine with immigration officers being serious and business-like. I don't expect them to smile. But she was downright ugly toward us.
Anyway, I'm not looking for anyone's sympathy. I posted this so others would not be totally surprised if they received such treatment.
Quote:Not to put too fine a point on it, but rude is rude.
Orginally posted by Melv
If you had been there, you would know that there was no excuse for her conduct. I'm fine with immigration officers being serious and business-like. I don't expect them to smile. But she was downright ugly toward us.
I agree that immigration and other Govt. officials are often cool and business like, but rudeness and disrespect is something which is very apparent, and quite different from a cool, business like attitude.
That said, this experience can occur anywhere - Canada, US, India or any other country.
No matter where you go, you can always find people who don't like you for no apparent reason
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"Mah deah, there is much more money to be made in the destruction of civilization than in building it up."
-- Rhett Butler in "Gone with the Wind"
Location: Western Hemisphere
Posted on: 29-06-05 11:34:59
I cross the Detroit-Windsor border twice a day 5 times a week and been doing so for more than 3.5 years. The rude officer simply was a case of "bug in her ass". While it is very unfortunate it happened during your first entry, it is nothing to take it seriously and lose your sleep over it. Just ignore it and enjoy your day.
I also travel to Europe for business every month and fly out of Detroit metro airport.
In all of these experiences, I have had one rude officer in Canada, one rude officer at the US entry at Detroit - one male and the other female. There was one rude guy at the DTW airport immigration (not in my lane) yelling at people at random. Otherwise, trust me, the officers are professional 99% of the time.
Just ignore them, answer their questions and move on. They'll pretty soon lose their steam and calm down.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dimple2001
Melv, I think we both got the same inmmigration officer, an elderly lady who did not seem happy to see Indians from what I could gather. You mentioned coming around 9.00pm and that was the time we had to deal with her too..she actually went a little further with us by taking away my wifes I-94 and saying that she will now have to stay in Canada and not be able to return to the US without the I-94. It took an hour of explaining that we have to be back to wrap things up in the US to get her to return it..but she had already stamped it by then..We were intending to spend a week in Canada and visit my cousin in Montreal but she spoilt our trip by doing this and we had to cut short our trip and return the very next day as were expecting to run into trouble at the US border post on account of the stamped 1-94 and wanted to get over with the ordeal as fast as possible.
Our experience in that regard too was similar as the lady officer at the US border post at 11.00pm at night in the bitter cold was extremely friendly and actually said 'welcome back'.
Quote:
Orginally posted by aashan
Melv, I think we both got the same inmmigration officer, an elderly lady who did not seem happy to see Indians from what I could gather. You mentioned coming around 9.00pm and that was the time we had to deal with her too..she actually went a little further with us by taking away my wifes I-94 and saying that she will now have to stay in Canada and not be able to return to the US without the I-94. It took an hour of explaining that we have to be back to wrap things up in the US to get her to return it..but she had already stamped it by then..We were intending to spend a week in Canada and visit my cousin in Montreal but she spoilt our trip by doing this and we had to cut short our trip and return the very next day as were expecting to run into trouble at the US border post on account of the stamped 1-94 and wanted to get over with the ordeal as fast as possible.
Our experience in that regard too was similar as the lady officer at the US border post at 11.00pm at night in the bitter cold was extremely friendly and actually said 'welcome back'.
Sounds very similar to our experience. The woman we dealt with asked for my wife's I-94 and we were very worried that she would keep it. But thankfully she returned it. We arrived in Windsor on Saturday night and returned to the U.S. on Monday morning.
We wondered if immigration officers are upset that many people are using Canada as a backup, not intending to move there unless things don't work out in the U.S. They may feel that they have to process papers and do a lot of work, but nothing comes of it. Of course, even if a new permanent resident doesn't actually end up moving to Canada, he or she has certainly paid enough fees to cover all the work involved.
