Originally Posted by safigan

Oh, CBSA people are reading this thread... then I've had *nothing* but *very pleasant* experiences at the border! But seriously, I appreciate having someone from CBSA on this board-- it feels more like a discussion than a rant session.

We've used a section of the regs involving seminar leaders to cross the border without a work permit. Some of the primary agents know about this reg and let us right through. Others divert us to immigration. This seems to happen most often at the smaller border crossings. Once in immigration, it seems to be a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes we have to wait a very long time for something which we've been cleared for over and over. Once we reach the front of the line, sometimes we're processed through quickly, other times the officers wave us through with instructions about what to bring with us next time (it's rarely the same advice), and sometimes the agent has to make us wrong before he lets us through. We've only been denied once, for a person who had a felony on his record. So it's mainly the hassle factor.

We discovered that by applying for Nexus, we could answer the questions once and be done with it. Now trips involve no discussion at all. My only beef with Nexus is that it takes 4 months to book an appointment at YVR. Also, it takes 45 minutes to update drivers license information (isn't this a simple database update?) and then we have to go to the U.S. side and go through the same process, which takes the same amount of time.

U.S. customs has been much more nightmarish for our Canadian collegues. We've gotten our congressman involved in our issues, though because of national security issues not even the president of the U.S. can override a decision made by a customs officer. This causes no end to our problems, as custom agents seem to make their decisions arbitrarily, particularly when they believe you're lying ("Oh, you say you're entering the U.S. to do *volunteer* work so you don't need a green card? We'll see about that...") One of our Canadian friends has been searched, interrogated for several hours on multiple occasions, and turned back enough times that we were advised that the next time he might be banned for 5 years. Other times he sails right through. However, we've stopped risking a ban and are now in the process of getting an L-1 visa even though he technically doesn't need one. He's chosen not to enter the U.S. for nearly a year during this process.

So getting inconvenienced a little bit is a small price to pay for the privelege of entering Canada a dozen or so times a year.