How can I get the travel record of US

march329 wrote: How can I get the Record of my travel in and out of the United States? Just write a letter to request it?

I am not sure, but my impression is that the U.S. CBP site says what it says (about not having complete records) because they want to make it clear that their records do not purport to be complete records of all entries into the U.S. The same caveat should be given for CBSA records.

(Remember, the U.S. records are not kept for the benefit of Canadian authorities; they are for the benefit of U.S. authorities . . . who require confirmation of exits or entries on some occasions, and for this, some but not all records are considered reliable sources.)

A number of people have reported, however, that the records they obtained were either complete or nearly complete, that is, including a lot if not all of their land crossings as well as those done via commercial air travel. How complete the land crossing records are probably varies, depending on a lot of factors (as I recall, one can get information about vehicles as well, which offer some evidence of a crossing even if it is not individual specific).

There is, though, no guarantee that such records are complete.

Thus, the bottom-line: such records are not relied upon to necessarily show all cross-border travel . . . they are relied upon to accurately show the entries they do show. So this is still valuable information for CIC.

Only each individual, for himself or herself, can maintain an accounting of travel that is sure to be a complete and accurate accounting of all travel. All PRs should be keeping precise records of all trips outside Canada. Do this and there is no chance of submitting a residency calculation that is inaccurate.

For purposes of clarification, it is worth remembering that accuracy and completeness are not the same thing. I mean, less than complete records can be relied upon to be accurate (within margin of error), even if they do not reflect every trip across the border.

The U.S. CBP site gives notice that they do not claim their record of entries via land crossings is complete. Indeed,

From the site linked above by sivan: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) only has complete records of the entry and exit of persons arriving and departing by air or sea. If you are a legal permanent resident and crossed at a land border, it is unlikely that we would have a record of your travels.

(Other pages at the U.S. sites say similar things about there is no claim that records of land crossings are complete.)

I would expect their records to be accurate, very accurate, again at least within margins of error for such record gathering and keeping.

There are many reasons, though, why they are not necessarily complete . . . even though, yes, a number of reports by those who obtained their records report that their records were in fact complete even for land crossings, for them. (In contrast, I know mine would not be complete since there were occasions, up until about two years ago, that I did not even present ID when crossing the border; had to show ID even less often coming into Canada from the States up until about a year ago, but since then it has been simply standard every time.)

I believe that whether or not their records are complete may depend on the particular status the individual has and of course whether or not there was any evasion or deception employed in the crossing . . . since these things are always a possibility, such records cannot be relied upon to be for certain complete.

The thing is, indeed, there are so many ways to avoid or manipulate these things that neither the U.S. authorities nor the Canadian authorities are likely to accept these records as definitively complete. Accurate, yes, complete, no. For example, I know many places where a person can easily go back and forth across the Canadian/U.S. border, accidentally let alone intentionally, without reporting to border authorities. Yes, people do this (and many get caught, many do not get caught). Use of alternative travel documents with alternate name spelling appears to not just happen but to be common (looking for clues that a applicant for citizenship has been using alternative travel documents is one of the things it appears CIC is specifically trained to do).

We requested them on February 29th. We have received the report from CBSA today (less than 4 weeks) and we are still waiting for the report from US CBP. That one usually takes a little longer.

Most of the time you do not need it. The main reason we requested them is, because we made a mistake in the residence calculator. We did send them a corrected calculation as soon as we noticed it. But we want to be prepared for the interview if the agent questions us about our travel history.