Henry Chang, a Canadian-American immigration attorney at Dentons Canada in Toronto, said Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada recently updated its guidance to clarify that U.S. students who appear at the border and can prove they are traveling for a non- discretionary reason may be allowed to enter Canada, even if they have yet secured a valid license.
‘Can I tell you that every person came in? No, “said Chang.
IRCC did not respond to requests for comment.
Meanwhile, other international students need a valid reason to be physically present in Canada and must have permits in hand – as permission per March 18 permit. The requirement means that new foreign students are essentially prohibited from entering.
CBSA officers will have to interpret the rules in large part as guidance flows from Ottawa, Chang said, and the issue of study permits will need further clarification. In the meantime, there will likely be differences between ports in how renewed guidance is applied to U.S. students, he said.
Online processing for student visas for Americans takes about 19 to 20 weeks, lawyers say. It used to last up to a month.
Universities have delivered letters to students signing up for personal coursework, in an effort to convince border officers of their enlightenment. Students who have poor internet connections in their home countries, or who have time differences that make it difficult to attend online classes, have also tried to make their cases available for admission.
But like all border meetings, CBSA officials have a wide discretion.
“There are a lot of factors that come into play when an officer enters a traveler’s country,” Callin said. “It is important to note that the final determination is made by an officer of border services per case. At the port of entry with the information presented at the time of entry into Canada.”
Deena Wang, director of international recruitment at the University of Windsor in Ontario, said the school has revised its travel grant letter nearly four times since the spring, in response to updates accompanied by Canadian immigration regulators.
A student required to prove essential travel “was not very clear at first,” she said.
In recent weeks, IRCC has signaled that processing study permits is the agency’s priority, Wang said.
“It took some time to recover, but the government intends to process the majority of the applications before the program begins,” she said next month.
The continuing restrictions also prevent younger U.S. citizens from crossing border communities from crossing the border for school.
Currently, students transferring to Canada must fulfill the country’s 14-day quarantine mandate. Commuting students do not fall on the Ottawa list of exceptions, making it impossible for them to attend a class in Canada and live in the US at the same time
The demands prevent some students from Point Roberts, Wash., Which borders British Columbia on a peninsula geographically isolated from the rest of the state, from returning to school and out-of-school in Canada, said Christopher Carleton, the fire department ‘ the city.
“We need to be considered independently when it comes to this pandemic, because everyone groups us in the rest of the United States, and we do not have Covid numbers here – we do not have the attachment to the lower 48,” he said. he said last month. “We are very isolated.”
There are no exceptions to Canada’s quarantine rules for students – as there are for certain workers, said Health Canada spokesman Eric Morrissette. “Because they could not reasonably follow this on a daily basis for the purposes of school, such students would be denied entry,” he told POLITICO.
The same quarantine mandate applies to Canadian citizens crossing from the U.S., even if they are students, Morrissette said, meaning that Canadians who live in the States but attend school in Canada are not allowed to commute for educational purposes.
Among those exempt from the requirements of the Quarantine Act are residents of an “integrated border community” that exists at the border. The landlocked area of Akwesasne, with Ontario, Quebec and New York, is the only place identified as fitting this definition, according to Health Canada.
That exception has at least one few border towns between northern British Columbia and Alaska that are seeking to be treated as such a community, given the geographic isolation of Alaska residents from the rest of the state.
For now, Canadian universities are pushing to stay abreast of ever-changing immigration guidance so they can communicate to international students what they need to know when trying to cross the border.
“It is important to us that we do everything we can to ensure that we train them properly for the process itself, and that we have adequate support in place” for foreign students, said Beth Natale, Director of the University of Windsor of student recruitment.
