An immigration lawyer is seeing more and more cases of Canadians getting five year travel bans to the US.

Len Saunders says since the beginning of summer, instead of Canadians being denied entry for something like a lack of documentation, they’re just being slapped with a five year bar. “In order to give out the five year bar they have to go through procedure of putting the person under oath and asking them questions and they’re just very mundane questions and then at the end they say ‘Sorry you’re barred for five years’ and the person is like’What did I do wrong?’ And I say the same thing, you did nothing wrong. I don’t think you did anything wrong. Maybe you had an insufficient document for work permit, maybe you didn’t have a bank statement or proof of your residence or employment in Canada, but the person could have went and got that and come back the next day and been okay.”

He says it doesn’t seem to matter where you cross the border in BC.”I’ve seen this in Oroville near Osoyoos. I’ve seen this at the Sweet Grass, Montana ports of entry. So, it seems to be kind of in the western, kind of northwestern sector for US Customs Border Protection
where I’m seeing these at literally every single port of entry.”

Saunders says he used to see about one or two of these cases a month, but now he is seeing almost one a day. He suggests being extra diligent with your documentation. Saunders also suggests flying to your destination if you can as he is not seeing these same issues at airports.