Traveling to Canada just before PR card expires

[AnandH]

Hello Friends,

I became PR in Jan 2015 and left Canada in Sep 2016. I have been traveling to Canada every year for work from 7 days to 60 days. Last time I have been stoped and sent to the immigration officer. The officer explained to me in a very nice way that if I think I am not going to live in Canada, then I must consider reannouncing the residency. I planed to reannounce the residency in Dec 2019 but then found out that it may take up to 3 months to complete the processing and then another 20 days to get a new visitor visa to Canada. I figured out that I did not have time to reannounce the PR to attend an important conference in Feb 2020.

In short, I want to travel to Canada in Feb 2020 for 6 days. My PR expires on mid-March 2020. As of now, I do not meet the residency criteria. I will reannounce my PR once I return to the US.

Are there any issues that might come up during this travel? Will I be stopped getting into Canada? Will I be reported? Anything I should take care of?

Any suggestions or comments are wellcome.

Thank you
Anand

 

[Riley Haas]

Absolutely there are, it depends upon the officer you get. Because your status has not expired yet, it's unlikely you will be denied entry though that is theoretically possible. (Keep in mind I am not a lawyer but my understanding is that, before your card expires, you need to apply for either a PR Card or PRTD to have your status revoked, rather than just try to enter. But I am not sure if that's 100% correct.)

In my opinion it is much more likely that they will give you instructions to about renouncing or something along those lines. (I.e. "when you apply for a new PR Card it will be only issued for 1 year" or something to that effect.")

It's also possible that nothing at all will happen. It depends upon the officer.

If you want to be sure, you could submit the renunciation application and let them know you've submitted it or speak to an immigration consultant or lawyer.

But basically the worst thing that happens is that they deny you entry and revoke your status. In my opinion that is quite unlikely, but that's just a guess on my part.