Many Canadians who travel to the United States must now register with the US government from Friday or have potential fines or prison hours.
The requirement is based on an executive regulation that US President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office for non-State citizens who are in the country for 30 days or more, although the government has always argued that it was always a registration request and that the officials now simply enforce them for everyone.
A US federal judge allowed the Trump government on Thursday to advance the claim that non -authorized persons must register with the Federal Government and have to bear documents.
From Friday, Canadians have to be in the United States for over 14 years in the United States, who have to register with US citizenship and immigration services (USCIS).
Officials of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in which the USCIS agency is housed, have published in the news that the registration requirements are fully enforced. According to DHS, the number of people as a whole could be affected by the rule, not only by Canadians, between 2.2 and 3.2 million.
“The US authorities strictly force the entry requirements,” said the Canadian government last week in an updated travel consultant. “Expect the test in entry ports, including electronic devices. Corresponding to and in all interactions with border authorities in the development. If you are refused to enter, you can be adhered to while waiting for the deportation.”
The Federal Government has tacitly updated its online travel advice in order to remind the Canadians to expect a review from border patrol officials if they travel to the USA.
Fingerprints for Canada not required
Janie Patterson, a Canadian who has traveled extensively to Florida for 10 years, told CBC News on Friday that the registration request was “surprising and impractical and many concerns about which will happen next”.
According to Site Snowbirdadvisor.ca, this feeling is common, in which it was found that “widespread misinformation and contradictory information online and through word of word about the new registration requirements that caused fear and confusion between Canadian snow birds …”.
Part of the confusion is based on the differences that occur frequently when Canadians travel to the USA by plane instead of entering the country at a land border.
Many who fly would have already received the required I-94 form, and you do not have to register if you submitted it beforehand. Most drive to the USA are not I-94.
To find out your status, travelers have to enter their travel information online Via a US immigration website On arrival.
Those who are necessary for registration must be exposed to registration proof or a fine of up to 5,000 US dollars or a prison sentence of up to six months or both.
At that time, the Canadians are freed from submitting their fingerprints, a requirement of citizens from other countries that remain in the USA for over 30 days.
Patterson, who has returned to Canada for the year, often drove across the border. But she said for the next year to fly her consideration, “to avoid that only the whole thing is crossed the border and possibly arrested.”
“The pendulum went 180 degrees”
The implementation takes place at a time increased tensions between the countries. The President has thought in detail that Canada should be another US state of US state, while some Canadian economic sectors were among the first to impose new tariffs through the second Trump government.
The number of return journeys between Canadians who traveled to the USA in March dropped compared to the previous year: 32 percent lower for travel in the country and a decrease of 13.5 percent for those traveling with air.
New data show a significant decline in Canadian trips to the USA, which asks questions about the relocation of tourist habits. The travel consultant McKenzie McMillan weighs the numbers and where the Canadians go on the way instead.
While the weakness of the Canadian dollar has reached a great deal, the latest reporting on the persistent treatment of tourists and students through immigration personnel on the front frontan staff could dissuade potential travelers to the USA
“You would not see these cases in previous administrations,” Len Saunders, a US immigration lawyer, told CBC News. “It is almost as if the pendulum had run 180 degrees, from low enforcement to maximum enforcement.”
In the court ruling on Thursday, Richter Trevor Neil McFadden, who was appointed in 2017 by the US district court for the District of Columbia, who provided the administration, which argued that the officials only enforced a prerequisite.
The Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney tells CBC News about her 11-day ordeal in ICE in-detection after she had tried to enter the USA to renew her work visa. Mooney describes what she saw as “disgusting”, and says of her adhesive cell: “This place breaks you.”
McFadden’s decision did not go into the substance of these arguments, but was largely on the technical question of whether the groups that urged to stop the requirement. He decided that they didn’t.
One of these groups, the National Immigration Law Center, described the decision as “disappointing” and asked the people who believe that they are affected to consult an immigration lawyer in order to better understand the consequences of registration.
Difficult choice for long -standing, non -authorized US residents
Federal Immigration Act, according to which people are not American citizens and live in the United States to register with the government, came into force with the extraterrestrial registration law of 1940, whereby the instructions with the law on immigration and nationality from 1952 were updated.
In the best case, the enforcement of such requirements was inconsistent, since terrorists attacked one of the rare exceptions after September 11, 2001.
Trump’s executive order in January followed on February 25, advice from Homeland Security officials in which people can prepare themselves if they were not ready to register.
The administration has pursued an aggressive deportation strategy and even radiated some migrants to separate third countries that are not origin science. Others, who applied asylum using an app introduced by the former Democratic government, were said that they should take off themselves, since their claims are no longer taken into account, this week was reported.
Apart from foreign nationals who take longer American trips such as the Canadian snow birds, the United States has an important problem with non -authorized persons within its limits, which are estimated by various thinking factories of immigration between 11 and 12 million people.
While migrants who cross border points to the USA, an attention-strong, hot problem that is political, so-called visa overhangs are an important driver of the non-authorized number. Before the Covid 19 pandemic, it was reported that tens of thousands of Canadians have exceeded their visa every year-according to the US government, the number has decreased slightly.
However, groups such as the National Immigration Law Center have argued that the US government should carry out a longer public notification process before the change is brought about.
And many who have not fallen into the category of winter travelers and careers or deep family ties in the USA are faced with the choice of registering, with a government apparently looking to carry out large deportions or to stay under the radar and to risk prison.
