I'm Peter Roberts, immigration attorney who does work for YC and startups. AMA

I personally am not sure that pre-clearance should even continue given current diplomatic tensions. Having an armed foreign police force from a country whose official head of state says it wants to occupy you... doesn't seem wise.

It's the tourists and people who rarely cross that have never encountered CBSA that try to treat Canada like some kind of theme park. They're also often unprepared with appropriate ID, documents, receipts and stuff and get weird when CBSA starts asking them exactly the same nature of questions that CBP asks of people going southbound.

I would also emphasize that CBSA knows how often you cross, through a US-Canada data sharing agreement. An ALPR system takes a picture of your license plate on your car and very quickly queries a database, for information presented to the question-asking-person, as your vehicle approaches the window. This is assuming you're driving northbound of course. Even if that doesn't happen, they'll ask to see your drivers license along with your passport and immediately know you don't reside anywhere near the border.

They know immediately if the zip code where your car is registered is somewhere close to the border, or is very far away from the border. And if you have, or have not, crossed the border recently. It's people from very far away from the border that rarely if ever cross who also think they can take their guns, drugs, etc into Canada and won't get questioned about it.

Is there a policy that requires that people denied entry be returned to the country they are citizens of?

I was on a big road trip across the country visiting national parks. I went to Organ Pipe Nat. Monument in Arizona which literally touches the Mexican border.

On my way there I drove through a border patrol checkpoint 10 miles north of the border inside the US. They don't check southbound traffic, only northbound. I never entered Mexico. On the way back I had to stop at that border patrol checkpoint. The border patrol agent was basically yelling at me for my passport. I told him I didn't have it with me. He yelled to see my driver's license. I gave it to him and he yelled at me "Why do you have a North Carolina driver's license?" I replied that is where I live and that is my home address on the license. He then screamed at me "Don't you know this is a prime drug running area?!" I told him "I have no idea and I'm not interested in drugs. There is a national park area 5 miles away, don't you get a lot of tourists here going to see that?"

I then noticed in my rear view and side mirrors that another agent was going around my car with a dog sniffing around. After about 2 minutes I saw the dog agent give a thumbs up and the rude agent said "Okay, you can go but you should carry your passport"

I had less rude experiences in Texas and California but still overly suspicious border patrol agents. One guy asked me what all the stuff was in my car. I actually offered him granola bars and soda cans and then showed him landscape pictures on my cameras. He realized that I was really a tourist and not into drugs or helping immigrants cross.

I doubt a few immigration officers with handguns (can't say for sure they even carry them or carry them out of the airport) are going to take over BC.

Funny, since half of U.S. citizens don't have a passport.

They have her in their system, and she has no rights.

So, going from Seattle up to Banff by way of the Sumas / Huntington crossing...

I went in and was asked for the purpose of my visit ("tourist"), duration of stay ("one to two weeks, no more than two"), for my occupation ("I am currently unemployed") and my permanent residence ("I am currently without a permanent residence")... and the officer looked at my car with camping equipment for more than two weeks... and I was sent to have a bit more of a discussion with an agent.

Parked my car and went in and waited. While waiting, another family was moving from Washington to Alaska... and they were having difficulties. Three vehicles, four possible drivers, though one was an older woman. One car contained a rifle and one of the drivers had a criminal record.

I got to the counter after an hour, explained, was denied entry but that could be rectified if I came back with proof of ties to the United States and proof that I had sufficient funds to be able to stay the duration of my stay without needing any employment.

So, got back in my car, got in line to go back to the US and called my parents on my iPhone (still a rather new tech). They happened to have been at the insurance company when I called, and so got insurance for the car that I was driving for Canada - and sent a photo of that insurance and their drivers licenses with the address clearly visible. Got to the US border agent who was confused that I hadn't entered Canada but was clearly coming from Canada and sat in that office for a little bit while they looked to see that yes, I was an American citizen.

After half an hour there went to the ATM and got a balance of my accounts. I had more than sufficient funds in the account, and then went back to the border crossing. It was the same agent at the crossing so I didn't need to explain again, but said I had the necessary proof (which surprised him that I got it that quickly) and had me park again and go in to the office.

In the office, the family was still trying to figure out what to do. An hour later after they decided that the brother with the criminal record was going to walk back to the US side and that they were going to pay an arm and a leg to register the rifle I got to the counter, showed my parents drivers licenses ("this is where I am going, I had some time without any responsibilities and so decided to tour North America"), the photo of the car insurance for Canada (they called that one in and verified it... again, surprised that I was able to get it so quickly), and matched the account on the ATM receipt with the account that I had for my card... and let me in with some paperwork in my passport noting that I needed to provide that paperwork when leaving the country otherwise entering again could be problematic.

Anyways... I had a great time in Canada. Loved Banff and later Waterton. Handed over the papers to ensure I was leaving at Chief Mountain. I'd love to do it again some day... the drive from Kamloops to Banff was one of the most enjoyable "just driving" days I've done.

It took a while, but trying to cooperate to the best of my ability and that new "sending pictures around" technology really helped.

But border patrol has always been a bunch of small dick assholes, all the way back to Obama.

My wife and I adopted a child from another country. He was 18 months of age at the time.

We flew into LAX. We were exhausted from a long flight. We got to customs. Agents approached us and said that they had a few questions and said that I (the father) needed to collect our bags and they would escort my wife(us citizen), my oldest son (us citizen), and my youngest son(adopted foreign national) to the waiting area.

I got our bags and tried to rejoin my family. They denied me entry. Said they had questions for “them”. After an hour I started to have to raise hell because I had all the supplies for my family. Diapers. Food, etc. I was told it obviously took us a while to adopt this kid so we can wait longer.

I eventually stated that they were illegally holding two us citizens and I was going to call 911 for them to take me serious.

They acted like they didn’t know my wife and oldest wee US citizens. Bunch of bullshit. Fuck those assholes and every one of them that continues to violate our constitutional rights.

Signed

12 year US Navy Civilian.

In practice, that means "near the border with Mexico" where there are border patrol stations along highways well inside the US that do routine stops, but technically it applies to any port city as well.

_Technically_, if you're a US citizen, you're not required to have proof of citizenship on you. But a drivers license in the US does not show that you are a citizen, and they absolutely can stop you from leaving (at least long enough to mess up your day plans) if you cannot actually prove citizenship in practice. It's just a _lot_ easier to have a passport on you. Passport cards exist mostly for this purpose.

E.g. I lived in Texas for a long time and have a passport card for that specific reason. Driving down to the beach or just going on random trips involves passing through border control stations even though you never leave the US or even get particularly near the border. Your chances of just going to visit a friend in south Texas and winding up needing to pass through a border control checkpoint due to unplanned road closures/etc are pretty high, so it's best to have a card in your wallet at all times that counts. Most remote highways have them as soon as you get back near a town. Most of the time, they'll wave you through pretty quickly, but it's just a lot faster process if you have a passport card and not only a drivers license.

Side note: A friend of mine was a park ranger at Carlsbad Caverns. He picked me up at the El Paso airport and we were driving to Carlsbad. We went through a border control checkpoint. They threatened to arrest him on the spot because he had his park service uniform hanging up in the back, but no employee ID or other proof that he actually was a ranger. They said he was impersonating a federal officer. They made a big deal of it and made us wait while they called the park to verify he was employed (and that didn't work because it was about 8pm). We eventually got let go with a warning after he found random online photos of him giving cave tours and convinced them that he couldn't possibly have staged a ton of random folks on the internet to have him in the background of photos.... But still, it was kinda nuts...

Having seen what the US gov't did to Maher Arar 20 years ago, I have never felt comfortable crossing that border since, despite being a white middle class Canadian of no suspect at all. Just place, wrong time, wrong person, and it can go so, so badly, without any recourse.

A selection of some of the photos I took there. https://imgur.com/a/stdkS0c ... some are memories, some are trying to capture the beauty of the area. I don't have them on http://shagie.smugmug.com because technically I was a tourist rather than a photographer and selling the prints gets into potential future visa issues. The rock formation is a nice, compact chevron fold.

Which is why Trump should be banned from entering as he is a convicted felon.

I recall doing the long walk into town and dumping quarters in the Bubble Bobble machine they had in the arcade there.

Met a cute girl there.

Many families with recent adoptees have terrible experiences. It’s sad, but it’s important to prepare for it.

Adoption and human trafficking can look very similar. And border guards are often assholes.

I, a natural born US citizen, was a student in the Bush years and I'd drive up to Canada. Coming back, the US guys were always aggro and weird. I had one guy smelling my laundry.

At the time I figured it was some post 9/11 BS.

Now, in some states, regular driver licenses have a citizen or non-citizen marker on them, but that's a whole separate thing (and AFAIK the feds don't consider them sufficient proof in any case).

https://www.dhs.gov/enhanced-drivers-licenses-what-are-they

EU citizens don't need a passport to travel across the EU (even outside the Schengen area, where you have to go through a border check), they just need an identity card.

(most) EU citizens could also travel to Turkey with their identity card.

EU citizens could travel to the UK with their identity card, for a few years after Brexit, as long as they got UK (pre-)settled status.

Russian citizens can travel to Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan without their international passport. They instead have an "internal" passport (meant to be used like an identity card, and for travel to closed towns inside the country), which is recognised by those other countries.

The same applies in the other direction for citizens of nearby countries travelling to Russia (even in the case of an Abkhazian internal passport. Abkhazia is recognised by only ~6 other UN member states).

I'm not sure in which way a US "passport card" differs from a plastic identity card. But it's notable that a few countries don't have either (UK doesn't... Russia and a few neighbouring countries, as mentioned before, instead have an "internal passport")

Of course, something in common with all the examples above, and with US citizens travelling to Mexico, is that you're travelling to neighbouring countries with friendly relations.

US simply doesn't have any official identity card.

So they make up replacements for when it's convenient to actually have one.

I suppose the goal is to encourage innovation in the identity theft industry... after all it adds to the PIB doesn't it?

When I have traveling within the US I never take my passport. There is zero need and I may lose it so why even bother taking it when it serves no use?

My trip was a 6 week long road trip from the south eastern US through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, up to Seattle in the northwest, and then back to the south eastern US.

I had no intention of going to Mexico or Canada. They are fine countries but that was no the intent of this trip so I left my passport at home.

During this trip I learned that the US border patrol has set up border inspection points about 10 to 50 miles inside the US. Most of the southern border are remote desert regions where people can cross on foot and then try to meet up with someone in a vehicle on the other side. So the border patrol doesn't just patrol the actual border but has checkpoints inside the US on the roads near the border.

You don't need a passport to get through these as you never left the country.

But I was driving a vehicle (Honda CR-V) with an open cargo area that showed it was full of luggage, bags of food, and lots of water bottles. I probably looked suspicious like I was picking up immigrants on foot or smuggling drugs.

I wasn't. I was on a big road trip and wanted to be prepared for days if my car broke down on a side road and I was stuck in a desert area waiting 3 days to be rescued.

But you’re right, it’s absolutely true that Canadian immigration law treats DUIs by foreign nationals far more harshly than US immigration law does (assuming simple DUI in each case and not something with complications like someone getting hurt or killed).

Militarily speaking, yes. But unlike the other examples, there is a huge economic difference between the US and Mexico, meaning migration flows exclusively one way. Illegal crossings are extremely common and the US has strong incentives to prevent them. It's hard to compare the US-Mexico border to any other border in the world.

But they have a "passport card"

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/travel-and-recreation/...

I don't see why Bundespolizie would have had to treat people differently, alas it's usually difficult to argue with a foreign country border police

For as long as I can remember it's just been known that going to Canada the border control folks are friendly, and coming back into the US is a mixed bag. Sometimes things are fine to cold, other times it's like the folks are having a bad day and taking it out on you.

And this is just me, rando US citizen without any criminal record, going to Canada for random couple-day touristy things. Seeing Toronto, Niagara Falls, hiking, etc.

I don't think either one is the case and obviously I know nothing of your situation besides what you've said, but I can understand why they might be suspicious if a couple of Americans leave the country and come back with an infant that was not part of their family when they departed.

Again, I'm not saying that I think that this is true or even that their concern is reasonable in this specific situation, just that there is another explanation for this other than power tripping racist border thugs, and depending on circumstances it may have been prudent.

They didn't care before, and they only care now for self-preservation.

I don't have any great photos from Athabasca area... some of the other photos...

https://imgur.com/a/c2Ep6ox

The style of waterfall photographs that I find myself drawn to are high contrast, narrower field of view that have a... "story of the water". You need to be able to follow it through the frame. The great spouts aren't ones that I find interesting. I much preferred Romana falls (Mount Hood - https://shagie.smugmug.com/Nature/Waterfalls/Ramona-Falls ) and Burney Falls (near Mount Shasta - https://shagie.smugmug.com/Nature/Waterfalls/Burney-Falls ). While they're veils of water from high cliffs that crash onto rocks far below, I can photograph them... intimately. They are majestic, but there are so many parts to them that tell their own "story".

https://imgur.com/1o6BVGR - I think this is from the Lake Louise area. Not sure, it's not labeled but it's date stamped near other photos in that area.

https://imgur.com/joZFgVT - Another example of "intimate photos of grand nature" - this is a small part (from where I stood https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1765131,-117.0554424,3a,75y,... ) of the mountains.

https://imgur.com/SmKxAeQ - I have it labeled as "Lower Brenda Falls" in my photos. I think its from Waterton area... Ahh... looking it up, Bertha falls. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Waterton+Lakes+National+Pa... (I'll be fixing that up in my albums)

And even then, a fire can show the recycling power of nature. https://imgur.com/IHQhm7z and wildflowers are once again freed from the seed bank. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Marble+Canyon+Trailhead/@5... - I was there in 2009, the fire was from 2003. https://cyclewriteblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/01/natures-riot...

(See also the "Cheeto truck explosion" on the road to Yosemite after the area had a wild fire through it - https://shagie.smugmug.com/Nature/Wildflowers )

https://photos.app.goo.gl/A8LypichDTns3n1V6

I'll have to try to get out there this summer/spring, wildflowers tend to emerge after mass fires like that.

The road up to Marmot Basin was just crazy when I was up there this winter. Desolation.

I took an espresso repair course just across the boarder in Washington and on my way back I was detained for hours and questioned very aggressively because "there is no such thing as an espresso machine repair course".

That being said, I don't doubt the American side can be tough too, though I have never experienced it.