Lacking the source material, it's unclear what the precise question was. If it was simply "have you ever smoked X?," then there is no answer that meets the requirements for applying the ineligibility by itself. If it was followed up with "have you ever been ARRESTED?" and "what was the result?" and that series of questioning leads to the applicant admitting to having been convicted of a drug offense, however minor or however long ago, then we have a traveler in need of a waiver of ineligibility.

There's a lot of paperwork involved in making these things happen, so refusals of this sort are typically very much by-the-book and meet each of several requirements in the operations manual (which are more restrictive than just the text of the statute). There are also redress avenues if a traveler feels the law has been misapplied, such as DHS TRIP. Meeting the ineligibility standards without any history of conviction is a very tricky process indeed. Given the fact that this story is from a Canadian, the most likely scenario is the traveler got busted in the States many moons ago and figured (incorrectly) that it just didn't matter anymore.

As mentioned above, we don't know what was asked. The traveler's story is here related second-hand anyway. Refusals at the border are not light work--any given major international airport will deny entry to maybe a few dozen travelers daily, out of the many thousands that pass through, and a good chunk of those are students trying to sneak back in after having dropped out of school. This person almost certainly admitted to having been convicted at one time or another, and will likely suffer only the minimal inconvenience of having to wait a few weeks for a visa if the transgression was as minor as they say.

Lying to a federal officer in an official inquiry is a felony no matter what nationality you are, though if you're not American you'll probably just be locked out indefinitely. DO. NOT. LIE. TO. CBP.

OK so what I would suggest is that you just Google "barred from entry to the US for life for admitting marijuana use" and you will see that CBP is very frequently not asking foreign visitors "do you have any past convictions/ have you been arrested, etc" It IS however asking "Have you used any illicit drugs in the past?" Which is very, very different.

Refusals have to be documented- we can agree on that. But head over to Theintercept.com and read some of the investigative journalism on CBP practices. One, for example, is being reported as someone suspicious. No definition required. No justification required. Anyone in any capacity of law enforcement decides that's the case and you're done. And this is PUBLISHED in writing by the US government-- not made up. We are in different times now...

As for information on convictions, Canadian and US officials have access to the same database so not a good idea to lie. The UK and Australia have also deported US and Canadian citizens for prior convictions... presumably because they have access to the same database.

You're continually missing the points here. I'd suggest you reread what I wrote. You keep on talking about someone with a conviction and being asked if they have a conviction. Of course they should say the truth.

What I am trying to tell you is that there is something else going on here.

Students trying to sneak back in?? What? From Canada? Huh?
And having to wait a few weeks for a visa? It's not happening... they are getting barred for life.

<redacted by moderator>.

I found the article. As the guy who was stopped says, he was held and questioned for hours; if it were simply a matter of "did you toke?" "yes" "bye" then they wouldn't waste their time. Now, it's possible they went through the whole rigmarole of getting him sworn in, digging up the statutes for the time and place where he did the thing, and getting him to admit every element under oath, but more likely he just copped to having paid a $25 fine in nineteen-seventy-whatever after getting swept up in a head-shop raid. I'm not saying it's not an obnoxious thing for inspectors to be doing if they are in fact making a habit of asking everyone over 50 if they've ever used drugs, but this "increase in bans" or whatever looks to be purely anecdotal. Worst case scenario, if this guy's truly been clean for forty years, is he now has to pony up a hundred and sixty bucks for a visa every five years or so a few hundred dollars for waiver reviews [edit: forgot the rules are different for Canada due to the whole visa-free thing]. "Lifetime ban" is a very dramatic way of describing an ineligibility that for most former, minor drug users is a temporary inconvenience.

Oh my gosh man...
There are TONS of articles about this very ISSUE-- i.e. not this particular case. TONS of cases of people being barred from entering the US for life because they have admitted to using marijuana. It just gets silly because I don't think you get it. Do you not think this is a little excessive?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...-pot-1.5322536

https://choice.npr.org/index.html?or...anned-from-the

https://qz.com/1600262/immigrants-ar...ing-legal-pot/

And many, many, many more.

Before replying, Google it. Read these links. It's not an exaggeration, it is happening.

Students trying to enter with unexpired visas but expired student status account for a huge chunk of denials at ports of entry. Maybe not the land crossing from Canada so much, just in general. Refusals for permanent ineligibilities are quite rare, though possibly more common for Canadians than other nationalities, since almost all others have to have either a visa or an ESTA review before showing up at the border in the first place, and there are thus fewer surprises for those travelers.

Again, the "lifetime ban" drama is undermined by the fairly liberal grant of waivers of the lifetime ban. An otherwise good traveler who has quit using is almost certain to get the waiver. Canadians, having visa-free travel, live a more complicated and expensive life than most in this regard, since anybody else can just apply for a tourist visa and have the waiver bundled into the application (hence the few weeks figure) while Canadians have to deal with a whole expensive rigmarole--but the results are usually the same.

Bottom line, there are oodles of people--some of them even former drug traffickers, never mind drug users--who are able to travel to the U.S., with some difficulty, true, but being turned around with scary talk of permanent bans is not the same as actually being permanently banned.

I would hope that reasonably intelligent individuals know whether they were EVER arrested or ticketed for possession. If so, then the answer may be YES. If not then the answer is "none of your business" but that will only result in more questions and problems. What are the first two letters in my quoted response? NO

<Redacted quote of deleted post>

Sir/ma'am, I read everything you sent. I've also read the whole INA because I am a person with a very active social life. I freely concede that if people really are being barred merely for admitting having used drugs but not of having actually, in the fullness of judicial process, violated a controlled substance law prevailing in the jurisdiction where and when the offense occurred, then CBP is not doing things properly. I will also grant that the blanket ineligibility for even titchy drug offenses is objectively bonkers, especially in light of the fact that shooting someone might not warrant an ineligibility if you're able to creatively plead down the charge. The law should change! Don't wait for me to argue that it's *good* for anyone to be focusing resources on nabbing old hippies, because it ain't.

However, what I've been saying all along is that CBP, for all its faults, generally (though not invariably) does do things properly, and it is less likely that they just chucked the law out the window than it is that the aggrieved travelers are, probably unintentionally, omitting small but key elements of their encounters from what they're telling reporters--such as their minimal but not nonexistent arrest histories. CBP definitely gets it wrong sometimes, and may well have done so with the cases in question, but that's not evidence of systematic persecution: seeing as how nearly half of Canadians admitted to having used marijuana at least once as of this time last year (just after it was legalized--https://www.statista.com/statistics/587689/marijuana-consumption-canada/), if CBP is casting a dragnet to catch everyone who's ever toked up, they're not pulling it very snug. Sometimes an inadmissible person will just fall in their laps, but good gravy, if they were really this scattershot about it, even the teetotalers would never get in because they'd die of old age in the border queue.

And to answer your first question: personally, never touched the stuff, but I really don't care if anyone else does. :)

Disagree. Always lie about drug use unless you have a conviction. Always

That might be true for an American returning to the U.S. or a Canadian returning to his own country but it is dead wrong if you are a visitor. Not answering a CBP question can result in a denial of entry if you are not a U.S. citizen. If it's not on the public record the answer is a firm no.

What about "Unless there is a public record of your past use" do you not understand?

I would amend that to "or unless you were stupid enough to have admitted it on social media".

Visitors are encouraged to take down their pics on Facebook and other social media where they're taking bong hits or enjoying the afternoon in an opium den.

Most of the time I would agree with you, but not here. If you consumed illegal drugs in the past, and there is no public record of it - arrest, conviction, medical record, social media admission - you'd be a fool to say yes in the immigration context.

Are you sure that a lie about such illegal drug use, if later discovered by the USG, can no longer be used to undermine the immigration and even naturalization status of persons admitted into the US and/or whose US immigration/citizenship status was adjusted after knowingly falsifying a response to such question during a verbal or written migration/immigration/naturalization application process?

I would say it’s a bad idea to lie and it’s a better idea to stick to the truth or to respond without answering the question. Even as I have no illegal drug use history, my response is “I have no criminal drug use history.” The response of “No criminal drug record” should work for others regardless of their history, as long as there is no criminal record of such use.

So here is the issue that everyone here seems to be dancing around or unclear about. This is about CPB increasingly asking about past marijuana use and using an absurd law to exclude visitors -in many cases permanently from the US. It’s not about being upfront about past documented convictions.
To ask someone whether they have ever used an illicit drug is so utterly absurd. I don’t advocate lying and I am consistently upfront whenever asked. That said, this is a mean-spirited application of another obscure American law (Google “how many crimes does an average American commit unknowingly”.. it makes for a hilarious- and somber- read) that falls under the “moral rectitude” admissibility umbrella- the same one which for decades was used to deny gay people, for example, entry into the US. Yet on any given day there are hundreds of criminals that have raided government coffers abroad who are freely admitted.

This has absolutely nothing to do with keeping criminals out of the US- it is purely a reflection of the the tenor of the times which is nationalistic it’s punitive and petty.

Sudafed is an illicit drug in many countries. As are many prescription medications in the US abroad. Will I tell the officers in the UAE that I used Sudafed for 20 years? No. But then again they aren’t so retrograde as to even pose the question.

Bottom line is use common sense. Have a record? Declare it. Smoked marijuana in college? Unless your a true masochist on a self-destruct mission, don’t. Just my 2 cents.

Moderator's Note
 

Folks,

There is a very fine line between border security discussion and political debate.

It is about to be crossed; please do not go there (discussing the tenor of the times).

Political discussions belong in OMNI/PR (access to OMNI is restricted to members who have been on FlyerTalk for 180 days and have posted 180 contributive messages).

Posts of a political nature will be summarily deleted without further notice. Repeat offenders will be subject to discipline.

TWA884
Travel Safety/Security co-moderator