Originally Posted by
König
Yeah, I noticed that I was treated better on average entering Canada as a US permanent resident. Once they did not open my foreign passport at all (GC was inside), and another time the CBSA lady officer did not even take passports from us, just asked if we had documents to re-enter the USA. On the other hand, entering Canada as a US citizen was not pleasant every time. But then CBSA and CBP are perhaps the only two agencies that treat visitors/citizens like suspected criminals.
As for OP, I do not even know why he bothered to open a thread about his experience. There is nothing out of ordinary in his case. But again, it would be nice if the signature was printed on the bio page just like in majority of contemporary passports around the world.
I'm wondering why so many people complain about the Canadian Customs & Immigration procedures. I've been travelling many times to YVR now and never have been bothered with unreasonable questions or any attitude whatsoever.
Contrary to the US where the CBP officials are often on a power trip and the treatment of intl arriving pax depends on the mood of the day. My recent experience at US Customs YVR was a 3 hour secondary inspection where a brand new agent was trained by a senior officer. He told him to take his time until he understood everything correctly. Not guilty of any wrongdoing he said to him "look for proof to charge him with 212 a) etc etc..." What about assuming the individual is innocent until you actually find an anomaly !? In the end I missed my flight. They of course had no proof or even indication of any wrongdoing on my end. Complaining about this will end nowhere and exactly that is what pi**ses me off, that they dont have to jusity themselves against anyone. I made it now my primary concern since beginning of the year to absolutely limit any transit or travel to the US, not spending any excessive funds there.
Now one could say, let the european countries crack down on things like this. Do not accept modified passports with extra pages, non signed passports and deny the individual entry. However that would be just as wrong as these condition go back to the incapability of the United States to provide sophisticated documents (come on, who applies for a passport at the post office & gets it delivered by regular mail) and the general culture of ignorance.