People with business ties to pot allowed to cross into U.S.,
But Canadians with previous pot convictions will still be inadmissible
VANCOUVER— Canadians who work in the domestic cannabis industry will be allowed free entry to the United States according to an update made quietly on Tuesday to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s policy on cannabis and the border.
The update came with little fanfare but it indicates an enormous shift in a policy stance that had generated fears that thousands of legally employed Canadians would be banned from the U.S. for life post-legalization.
“A Canadian citizen working in or facilitating the proliferation of the legal marijuana industry in Canada, coming to the U.S. for reasons unrelated to the marijuana industry will generally be admissible to the U.S.,” the updated statement reads.
Canadian businesspeople or investors with ties to the American cannabis industry will still risk inadmissibility if those links are made apparent to U.S. Border Patrol officers. Likewise, Canadians with criminal histories related to pre-legalization cannabis — or those who have admitted past cannabis use to customs officers — will still be eligible for border bans.
But Blaine, Wash.-based immigration lawyer Len Saunders called this change an enormous win for Canadians.
“As Donald Trump would say, ‘This is huge,’ ” he said in an interview Thursday morning.
But Saunders cautioned that what may actually happen after legalization is still unknown.
Whether the border patrol will perform the same aboutface for Canadian cannabis users remains to be seen, he added.
Nevertheless, he said, for both the Canadian government and for those Canadians who have been fearful of travelling south because of their association with legal activities in Canada, this is movement in the right direction.
The policy, he said, “is definitely a very, very powerful tool going forward after Oct. 17.”
The update comes following a congressional letter from U.S. Rep. J. Luis. Correa to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen requesting clarification of the policy grounds on which Canadian cannabis workers were being denied entry to the U.S.
A statement from Correa’s office said the congressman was aware of the changes, and would be following up with Nielsen and the Department of Homeland Security in the hopes of clarifying further questions later on in the week.
“While the agency has provided us with more information than we had,” the statement read, “we still have questions that need answering.”