joejones

My family of 5 is relocating from Japan to the US soon, and I'm researching our best flight options at the moment. I'm leaning toward taking AC through YYZ but have two vague concerns as I have never flown through Canada before:

1) I am a US citizen, as are my kids, but my wife is coming in on an immigrant visa. Any downside to doing the US entry processing at YYZ as opposed to a US port of entry?

2) We will probably max out our checked baggage allowance and have something like a dozen large checked bags. I understand that they let you check bags through on int'l -> US connections now, but is there any Customs or other issue with checking through a huge amount of luggage? (One reason I want to fly though YYZ is to avoid claiming and re-checking everything at a hub in the US, but I wonder if there is any potential hassle that I'm missing...)

MSPeconomist

Most Canada to USA flights do immigration and customs clearance in Canada, but this tends to be in different terminal than what is used for longhaul international flights. At many USA hubs, if you stay on the same airline or same alliance, you're not forced to change terminals.

joejones

It appears to be the same terminal at YYZ, and with no need to claim and re-check luggage, so long as both flights are on AC or *A. That makes it appear more convenient than pretty much any connecting point in the US...

Yoshi212

Personally if I were in your situation I would want to be at the true US POI for the first entry with Immigrant visa for your wife. Having the Visa plus a whole family of US Citizens gives you a high probability of no issues but CBP can be truly unpredictable.
What is your connection from YYZ. To where? Layover time? If there is a snag in YYZ you could end up with a missed connection and maybe even an overnight if no more connections.

joejones

Most likely we'd have a 4-hour layover at YYZ.

GUWonder

It works fine. The only issue is that at least when with checked luggage a lot of these international transits via YYZ into the US involve waiting for an electronic call up before proceeding to US CBP Preclearance. But it works well enough. But the more bags you have, the slower the electronic call up works.

I see no good reason to avoid routing via YYZ, especially if your wife is already with the right documents to even enter Canada.

B1

Why would you bother with a third country and more potential problems? There are many more direct flights from Japan to the US than to Canada. With all that luggage and someone who is not a citizen of the US, your entry should be as direct as you can make it. What's the point of going through YYZ? If there is another reason to go through Canada, consider YVR, which is a hub for transpacific travel. But an extra border crossing....?

tentseller

AC has been undercutting US carriers on TPAC routings via YYZ.

But I agree that the pre-clear CBP facilities might not be set up to process a first time landing of a US immigrant.

Jono

Just wanted to point out that the US CBP at YYZ processes 4.5 million passengers each year (according to the GTAA's website). This probably puts it among the top 20 if not top 10 CBP facilities. They should be perfectly capable of handling 1st time US immigrants.

tentseller

The number is very high, I agree, I was responsible for 20 of these per year.

But the number of 1st time immigrants would be low as YYZ is not a popular immigrant first entry point.

I would advise OP to email CBP about the processing capabilities for first time immigrants at YYZ

GUWonder

CBP can do it at YYZ and probably all CBP Preclearance airports. It's also done at AUH which probably gets a lot of family migration flow traffic when controlling for US-bound passenger numbers.

B1

The secondary facilities are very small and I agree that they are not the place to process US immigrants. And the "what if" comes up - if there's a problem and that person is detained, all the others are in the same fix and will miss their flight. If it happens at an airport in the US with no further flights, it's so much easier. It's only a problem if there's a problem. But that's the point. I had to deal with a secondary at the US YYZ post (I declared I had a pack of crackers) and it was very crowded and the treatment was not pleasant - and I was not immigrating.

joejones

Thanks for the replies.

There will be a further flight no matter what. Our choice is between connecting in the US and connecting at YYZ.

Found a few posts here which suggest the process will probably not be that bad:
http://www.visajourney.com/reviews/p...ge=1&dfilter=0

joejones

Update: We ended up flying through YYZ and I can say that it was a good choice, as we had 12 pieces of checked luggage between two able-bodied adults (having maxed out our kids' allowance as well as our own), which would have been almost impossible to claim and re-check if we had connected in the US.

Immigrant visa processing is done in the secondary room at YYZ but we weren't there for too long -- maybe 20-30 minutes. Having to wait for a delayed connection in the cramped and crowded AC Express gate area was by far the worst part of the adventure.