How the INS keep track on canadians in our departures?

I have visited the states too many times the last 5 years as a tourist,i heard if i overstay i'll be banned for years, but how the INS keep your departure status as we r not even required the I 94?,al...

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Canadians in the USA

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starchef75
New Member

vancouverite

Joined: 14 Sep 2008
Posts: 5
Location: VANCOUVER

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 8:12 am

I have visited the states too many times the last 5 years as a tourist,i heard if i overstay i'll be banned for years, but how the INS keep your departure status as we r not even required the I 94?,all we need to do is getting your boarding pass at your flight counter

CalGreenCard
CanuckAbroad Regular

Joined: 16 Feb 2008
Posts: 65

Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 10:24 am

starchef75 wrote: I have visited the states too many times the last 5 years as a tourist,i heard if i overstay i'll be banned for years, but how the INS keep your departure status as we r not even required the I 94?,all we need to do is getting your boarding pass at your flight counter

They may well share information with Canadian customs and with the airlines. Of course it is true that, even with Big Brother getting more active, their info on Canadians coming and going is probably less complete than for other nationalities.

But a Canadian can stay for up to six months legally. If you are frequently staying for longer than six months as a "tourist", this will create huge gaps in your background, and eventually you will encounter a USCIS officer who is either curious or sees something in his/her computer that doesn't quite make sense. They will start asking questions and they are very good at ferreting out lies.

Can a Canadian stay for six months and a day and get away with it? If they are lucky then quite possibly yes.

Can a Canadian essentially live in the US as a tourist and hope to keep crossing the border freely? No--eventually they will be caught at the border, especially in today's world.

Remember, also, that if they do get suspicious and start asking more than the usual number of questions, they can put the burden on proof on you to prove that you didn't overstay and are maintaining Canadian residency--not on them to prove that you did overstay.

Steven
CanuckAbroad VIP