Asylee Green Card holder plans to visit Canada

score:4

Accepted answer

You don't need a visa to Canada, as a green card holder, but you do need a travel document. If you cannot get a valid passport from your home country, consider applying for a US refugee travel document.

Upvote:5

As @phoog linked, you should always try to follow official information from government website and have a refugee travel document issued by the U.S. before trying to enter Canada.

But as a side note, the message on the government website is probably the result of a confusion. If you have some really urgent need to visit Canada, you can still attempt crossing at a land border.

The April 26 regulatory changes only concerned the ETA requirement, not the passport exemption for U.S. LPRs requesting admission direct from U.S. at a land border (IRPR 52(2)(b)). A valid passport or travel document is always required for air travel due to a separate regulation. For whatever reason, IRCC decided to put a much broader change on the website.

Even in May 2022, the CBSA/IRCC operational guide says

13.16 Passport and travel document exceptions

[...] Permanent residents of the U.S. seeking to enter Canada from the United States or St. Pierre and Miquelon. Note that U.S. Permanent Resident Cards are only acceptable upon presentation on contiguous territory and not valid for international flights from outside Canada unless accompanied by a valid and subsisting passport or travel document;

Upvote:6

See xngtng's answer. It seems that US permanent residents may still be able to travel to Canada by land using only a green card as they have been for the last several decades. In other words, the Canadian government website cited below may be incorrect. Stay tuned.

Original answer:

You may be asking this question because you've seen information online saying that US permanent residents can travel by land between the US and Canada using only their green card. This used to be true, but that changed 14 months ago:

As of April 26, 2022, lawful permanent residents of the United States must show these documents for all methods of travel to Canada:

  • a valid passport from their country of nationality (or an equivalent acceptable travel document) and
  • a valid green card (or equivalent valid proof of status in the United States) Features

The application for a refugee travel document is available at https://www.uscis.gov/i-131

More post

Search Posts

Related post