{"id":256472,"date":"2020-05-28T23:10:29","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T03:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=256472"},"modified":"2020-05-28T23:10:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T03:10:29","slug":"how-cbsa-determines-essential-travel-revealed-in-internal-memo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/05\/28\/how-cbsa-determines-essential-travel-revealed-in-internal-memo\/","title":{"rendered":"How CBSA determines \u201cessential travel\u201d revealed in internal memo"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) distributes internal instructions to the authorities who get the final say in who crosses the Canadian border.\u00a0CIC News\u00a0has obtained a copy of the bulletin that is meant to help border officers decide the outcome of a foreign national trying to enter Canada from the U.S. (Pexels photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the U.S.-Canada border closed to non-essential travel, CBSA officers use in-house guidelines to determine if now is the right time for a foreign national to come to Canada.<\/em><\/p>\n

Border officers are on the frontlines enforcing Canada\u2019s travel restrictions, but the particulars of how they determine \u201cessential travel\u201d for specific situations have not been made available to the public.<\/p>\n

Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) distributes internal instructions to the authorities who get the final say in who crosses the Canadian border.\u00a0CIC News<\/em>\u00a0has obtained a copy of the bulletin that is meant to help border officers decide the outcome of a foreign national trying to enter Canada from the U.S.<\/p>\n

Though foreign national family members of Canadians are exempt from the travel ban, they must still demonstrate that they are coming to Canada for a\u00a0\u201cnon-optional\u201d or \u201cnon-discretionary\u201d reason<\/a>, which does not include a family funeral, for example.<\/p>\n

Do you have more questions on coronavirus and Canada immigration?<\/b><\/p>\n

Even if the foreign national is coming to Canada to witness the birth of their first-born child, they still have to demonstrate that they have a plan to isolate themselves for the 14-day quarantine requirement for most in-coming travellers, otherwise, they may be denied entry. If the foreign national was a grandparent of that newborn baby, their reason for travel would not be considered \u201cessential.\u201d<\/p>\n

These are some of the nuances that are not immediately evident in the information available on the\u00a0Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) webpage<\/a>. The CBSA\u2019s\u00a0social media<\/a>\u00a0platforms also offer some resources, and you can\u00a0contact them<\/a>\u00a0to ask questions about your individual circumstances.<\/p>\n

When you get to the border, you will need to explain to CBSA officers why your trip is essential at this time, during a global pandemic when travelling poses an imminent health risk. You also need to have an adequate plan to quarantine for two weeks, if you are not exempt. Failure to meet these requirements may result in being denied entry to Canada, or having to carry out quarantine in a government-approved facility.<\/p>\n

Some of the exemptions to the quarantine requirement are listed in the contents of the CBSA\u2019s internal memo below. This is not the entire memo, which is 28 pages and offers instructions that are oftentimes more relevant to officers than to travellers. It is the list of scenarios used to guide CBSA officers, edited for clarity and length. The \u201cRationale\u201d column has been transcribed verbatim, except in the case of grammatical errors.<\/p>\n

The government\u2019s terms, \u201cnon-optional\u201d and \u201cnon-discretionary\u201d have been kept to preserve the intended meaning.<\/p>\n

Some scenarios were left out if the hypothetical parties involved were able to enter Canada by right, such as First Nations, and Canadians. Cases where foreign nationals had to cross the border due to a natural disaster or a highway closure were also left out of this list; both scenarios would be considered \u201cessential\u201d and therefore a permissible reason to enter Canada.<\/p>\n

The scenarios from CBSA\u2019s list have been sorted into the following five categories: family, students, workers, business, and other travellers.<\/p>\n

Family<\/h3>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Students<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Workers<\/h3>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

Business owners<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Other travellers<\/h3>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the U.S.-Canada border closed to non-essential travel, CBSA officers use in-house guidelines to determine if now is the right …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":256473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,6,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-256472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-immigration","category-news","mauthors-shelby-thevenot","mauthors-cic-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256472"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256474,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256472\/revisions\/256474"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}