I was born in Canada but have been in the USA since a small child. I’m under DACA status. If I depart the USA I get a ten year bar. To make it more fun I have a misdemeanor on my record when I was freshly 18 (3 weeks in..young and dumb nothing serious). Im in my early 30s now, I barely even drink lol. Completely normal otherwise etc. I figured a good way to come (back) to Canada is to join the army for a bit. But if my training and career will be hindered from being barred entry, I’ll probably focus more on other avenues for a career
Thanks all!
So, without turning this into a politics discussion or discussing the wisdom or validity of any particular policy, and sticking to you and your circumstances: You’re in a very uncertain position right now and it can be hard to make a decision with that. Yes, one possible way things could evolve in your favour might be that the consequences of your status in the U.S. shift with the political winds. Waiting that out to roll the dice in a few years could be a viable course of action, but you need to decide if that’s a wait and a risk you’re comfortable with. And it may not go in a way that helps your situation. I would recommend just going with the facts as they are now, and deciding based off that. Maybe the facts will change but you could waste a lot of years hoping for that.
Joining CAF necessarily means coming back to Canada anyway. You’d be uprooting whatever life you have in the U.S., which sounds like pretty much your whole life. You would need to consider if coming back to Canada and incidentally eating that ten year ban is worth it in terms of not going back to see other family, friends, etc.
@ModlrMike is objectively correct that staying there and waiting a few years to see might be the ‘safest’ option in terms of minimal disruption to your life. Up to if what you currently have there is good enough for you to stick around longer.
Joining CAF will likely mean work travel to the U.S. at some point. All elements of CAF will participate in joint training down there sometimes, and any individual CAF member in an operational unit is likely at some point to be a part of that. I don’t have an answer to how CAF handles that, or to whether the U.S. government will offer a different visa/entry permission for people in your circumstances who are a CAF member; clearly the risk to them changes if you’re back there as a foreign military member on fixed duration training.
I strongly recommend reaching out to CAF recruiting, explaining your circumstances, making sure you’re talking to someone who understands it, and getting a proper answer. Guaranteed CAF has already dealt with this issue, so someone somewhere knows.
