BIRD TALK

Dear Bird Talk,

Inadvertently, I have done something really stupid. I made an honest mistake muddling up my days spent in the U.S. for 2013 and only now realize that I was in the U.S. for more than my allotted 182 days…by six days (188). Am I the first idiot to have ever done this? I have been to the States two or three times since then, blissfully unaware of my error, and there was no problem at the border. I did read the CSA “heads up” that the U.S. and Canada border services do not yet share dates of entry and exit, but that they eventually will. What advice would you give me? I am happy to apply for a “Waiver Pardon” or something. Ideally, I would like to spend at least some of this winter at our Florida house ‒ if only to get it ready to rent ‒ and then I could wait out a year while applying for this “pardon,” but it does seem like a storm in a teacup! Any avenues or advice would be gratefully received.

Andrew G.

Response:
Ed: The names have been changed to protect the innocent! Effective July 1, 2014, there will be a full border information exchange between the U.S. and Canada. It is already in effect. My advice is to ignore the past issues and just comply with the laws going forward. IF you are asked by the border guards how long you spent in the U.S. last year, I would just say “six months.” If you start to parse the number of days, they get suspicious. There is no Waiver Pardon, but you can apply for extended stays which are often granted if you have a good reason. They take months to process, so apply well in advance. We really need our Snowbird Visa, so that all of these problems will disappear.