Frequent Canada-U.S. Border Crossers
Save Time with the NEXUS Card
By: Attorney Bruce A. Coane and Sarah F. Botros
If you travel frequently to and from Canada or the United States, the NEXUS card may be a viable option for you to help save time while crossing the border.
NEXUS is a program that was created by The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The program was designed to facilitate customs and border clearance processes for low-risk, pre-approved travelers entering the United States and Canada. Members receive identification cards that can be used in place of passports at designated air, land, and marine points. The card may be used when arriving to the U.S. from Canada only, but may be used when arriving to Canada from any country.
The NEXUS card saves travelers time by allowing them to use specified lanes at certain land borders and to scan their own cards at easy to use, self-serve kiosks in participating airports. For marine travel, border officials can be contacted in advance to report expected arrivals. In addition, fewer questions, if any, are asked by customs and immigration officials to NEXUS card holders.
In order to qualify for membership you must be a citizen or permanent resident of Canada or the U.S. currently residing in either country, or planning to legally live in either country during the term of your NEXUS membership, and pass criminal history and law enforcement checks. Your application must be approved by both countries. You may not qualify if you are inadmissible to the United States or Canada under applicable immigration laws, submit information that is false or incomplete on your application, have been convicted of a criminal offense in any country and not received a pardon, have been found in violation of customs or immigration laws, will not lawfully reside in either Canada or the U.S. for the term of your NEXUS membership, and/or fail to meet other requirements of the NEXUS program.
To become a member you must apply online or by mail. The online application takes less than fifteen minutes to complete, and once submitted you can expect to hear back from a NEXUS official within two to six weeks. At that point, if you are conditionally approved, you are invited to make an appointment online for an interview, which, again, takes less than fifteen minutes to complete. Depending on availability, you can schedule an interview to be held within a month. Interviews are conducted by both Canadian and U.S. customs officials. They verify identification documents, take fingerprints, perform eye scans (if you wear glasses they will scan your eyes both with and without your glasses), and take a photograph of you. You will be given your NEXUS card at the interview. They also ask you questions about the purpose of your travels, where you have travelled within the last twelve months, how often you cross the U.S.-Canada border, your employment, your background (including criminal background), and explain the NEXUS program to you in more detail. You are also asked to register your vehicle information and provide proof of ownership.
After the interview, one of the officials will demonstrate how to use the self-serve NEXUS kiosks. The kiosks each contain a camera that takes a picture of your eyes. Once the machine recognizes you, based on the eye scan from your interview, it will ask you several questions like those on the customs declarations forms that you fill out for any international flight. The NEXUS card does not exempt you from filling out a customs declaration form. Once you have finished answering the questions, the machine will issue you a yellow card with your name and an assigned number, which you are to give, along with your customs declaration form, to the customs official upon exiting the airport. The whole process at the self-serve kiosk takes only a few minutes, compared with the twenty or thirty minutes sometimes spent waiting in immigrations lines. This saved time is especially beneficial to those travelers who have connecting flights soon after their international flight arrivals.
The NEXUS card costs $50 U.S./CAD and is valid for five years. It can be used instead of other official forms of photo identification as it includes a recent photo, your name, gender, country of citizenship, date of birth, and passport number.
Children under 18 years must have permission from a parent or legal guardian to enroll in the program, and must be accompanied by at least one custodial guardian or parent at the interview.
For more information, please visit the Canada Border Services Agency website at www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/menu-eng.html or the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website at www.cbp.gov .