If you are thinking about crossing the US Border, there is a risk.
Meet Marites. She came to Canada under a work permit and was able to bring daughter, Chona, with her under a visitor record which has the same expiry as her work permit.
Both also hold US Tourist Visas and decided to drive down to the border to go to Los Angeles to visit Marites' cousin and to vacation there for a month.After a month, both were able to come back to Canada.
Fast forward to 1 year later, Marites submitted an application to extend her work permit along with the visitor status extension for Chona.
To her surprise, she received a refusal of Chona's extension application and she was asked to leave Canada. Why?
It is because, Chona was found to be in violation of IRPA or current Immigration Act. The authorized period of stay of a Temporary Resident, according to the regulation are as follows:
(4) The period authorized for a temporary resident’s stay ends on the earliest of
(a) the day on which the temporary resident leaves Canada without obtaining prior authorization to re-enter Canada;
(b) the day on which their permit becomes invalid, in the case of a temporary resident who has been issued either a work permit or a study permit;
(b.1) the day on which the second of their permits becomes invalid, in the case of a temporary resident who has been issued a work permit and a study permit;
There are other paragraphs in that subsection but We are just going to focus on those ones above. If you noticed, there is no mention of visitor records. It is not being identified as a permit. Also, it states there that temporary residence ends when you leave Canada without prior authorization to re-enter.
It depends on the border or visa officer, if you hold a Visitor Record and let us say you cross the border, that means you already ended the validity of your visitor record. When you re-enter, the Visa Officer may not stamp your passport and you are by default allowed to stay in Canada for 6 months. Therefore, whatever expiry date on the Visitor Record you previously held is no longer being honored.
This is what happened to Chona. When she re-entered Canada from the US, her visitor status expiry had been reset to 6 months from the time she re-entered and by the time Marites applied for an extension of her status, she was found to have overstayed.
So, be careful when you are planning to go to the US if you are a Visitor Record holder. It is strongly suggested to request the Border Officer to stamp your passport with the same validity of your initial visitor record because by the time you apply for an extension of status or you apply for Permanent Residency, the Visa Officers, or Immigration Officers can always require you to provide these information if they have the reason to ask you.
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