Soft Landing by Road and PR not processed by immigration officer

Express Entry
1

Hello Everyone,

I got my COPR approved which was valid until Jun2022. Given I current job in US and working there, I didnt want to move to Canada immediately but rated was to do a soft landing to have my PR card processed . My intent was to move to Canada by end of 2022 or early 2023 once I figure out the job prospects. Therefore, I decided to do a soft landing to Canada via Land (Peace bridge) in mid-December.

In my case, I passed through the first immigration check point, and the first officer asked me to go into a office nearby for further verification and processing. The second officer who was validating my documents on my length of stay, therefore I honestly told him that I plan to stay for about a week at my friends place and then immigrate at a later point. He immediately jumped on that and mentioned that he cannot process the PR request to any temporary address. I tried to explain and convince on my situation, however, he was very certain that he will not send the PR to any friends/family address in Canada. The officer continued to explain that the whole point of issuing the PR was when someone really moves in permanently into Canada. Long story short, the officer said that he wont process my PR and recommended that given have 6month left in my COPR visa, that I come at a point when I am ready to move in permanently. So I just had to make a U turn at the border and return back the US. Pretty disappointed.

Has anyone had a similar experience? and is there any way to have the PR card processed when you are in US? As I said, I never planned to immigrate in by Jun2022, still have to work on my employment stuff and have lot of things in US to settle before I move to Canada in 2023. Also, I dont think I can travel in next few months to Canada due to worries around the travel ban on re-entry to US etc…

Thanking you advance for any post and help…

2

i was in a similar situation i did the soft landing successfully and also stayed one week in canada after getting my CoPR paper work processed in the border. i did mention that i will be moving once i get naturalized in US in march and they did not mind that as well. Only thing what they mentioned to me is to indicate what items that i will be importing to canada. So i did that i was well on my way.

I would suggest you try another weekend to cross the port of entry (peace bridge) . If possible try another port of entry if there is available . If you tell them that you only want to do soft landing and return back to US they would not stop you from doing that. indicate you have permanent address in Canada that they can mail the PR card to. Hope it works well for you.

3

Hi @appubgl ,
Sorry to hear about your experience. We are in the same boat with a copr expiring in March 2022 and we wish to move permanently later in the year.
Assuming you had a one time entry PR Visa, can you re-enter Canada with the same PR visa again before your copr expires in June 2022?

4

That’s tough luck. I remember seeing posts where folks get the COPR validated but were not able to get a PR card processed till they acquire a residence in Canada and I believe that should complete the soft landing process even without issuance of a PR card, correct me if I am wrong there but did they at least do that?