In the Meantime...

During all of this time, I travelled back and forth from Saskatoon to Chicago every couple of months. While crossing the border, I was always honest--visiting my husband. I have known lots of US/Canada couples who have said “visiting friends” when they cross, and while I don’t blame them, I didn’t feel right about doing that myself. Occasionally, a customs agent would grill me a little harder to ask about our immigration plans, but I was never detained. Once, when my husband and I were crossing the border into the USA together, we were briefly detained, but after showing them my paperwork, we were allowed into the country. The key is that I was always visiting, and had to have a planned date to leave. Canadians are allowed to spend 180 days in the US in any given 12-month period (not calendar year, so it never “resets”). I was careful not to hit that 180, and we had contingency plans for if my interview took forever to come.

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