Crossing the border is pretty easy, you can get an enhanced drivers license which would give you passage to both Canada and Mexico. Staying long term would be more challenging.
this post was submitted on 10 Jun 2025
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I posted this in a comment but other people are telling you to get a passport, which would be wise HOWEVER:
Under 52(2) of the immigration regs, American citizens do not need to hold a valid passport in order to enter Canada to be a temporary resident (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2002-227/page-8.html#h-686250). You do, however, have to PROVE your American citizenship which a passport does. Getting a passport is still a good idea if you wanna go elsewhere (maybe Mexico later I dunno)
You could enter and study French, if you'd like, otherwise try to get into a relatively easy program on a study permit (not necessarily a 4 year degree, maybe something like HCA school or a one year program at a technical school like NAIT) and aim for a PGWP - that should be a few years here for you to figure out if you're going to be safe or not. You do have to have a clean record to enter Canada, but unless you have some 5 Eyes shit they won't double check - if you want you can order an FBI criminal record check or whatever, but you only have to convince an officer of the crown you won't come here and break laws. You do also have to prove that you have the funds to be here - they only check for funds if you're from a country where the GDP per capita is below Mexico.
Get a passport first and then yea sure if you can. To be a downer it's almost impossible though.
It's pretty hard to immigrate here. You can't apply for refugee/asylum from the US. The Canadian populace has also made Indian immigrants their scapegoat for all of their societal woes, so there's been pressure on the government to curb immigration, and they've been doing that.
Your genuine best bet of getting into Canada would probably be through getting a student visa, and obviously university is expensive (not as expensive as the US). And I think that's being cut back on too. I think basically every other mode of immigration is like, for rich people. Or do marriage fraud ig.
Your genuine best bet of getting into Canada would probably be through getting a student visa
Negative. I had a work colleague try that and report that it was a dead end road.
Unironically, @Aliveelectricwire@hexbear.net your best bet for immigration is to marry a Canadian citizen. Even then it's a very long, drawn-out process (my family has been through it) but with the recent caps on immigration that's probably your best bet.
Unironically, @Aliveelectricwire@hexbear.net your best bet for immigration is to marry a Canadian citizen. Even then it's a very long, drawn-out process (my family has been through it) but with the recent caps on immigration that's probably your best bet.
Sometimes I've thought ot turning my unmarried-and-bi-and-Canadian situation into a comedy video on youtube or somewhere. "Now accepting applications from desperate Americans, line forms on the left". But nowadays that feels exploitative and not very funny.
Make the show totally fictional and then use it to fund your rescue operation.
Damn, guess my info is outdated
I would offer marriage fraud services to my comrades but apparently you do it more than once and suddenly its suspicious, smh
could you not just come in on a tourist visa and then try and live off the grid until shit hits the fan to the point where deporting you back to america becomes a lower priority? idk maybe thats unrealistic in this day and age but how hard could it be to find under-the-table or online work/roommates and get by for a while? Esp if you made some comradely friends online first before coming
ig if you think being a criminal on the run is preferable to ur current situation, but i don't really feel comfortable on advising on that lol
fair lol. gotta know the right people I guess to get advice on that. my thinking was that immigration "crimes" are not really the same as other crimes (in some countries at least). Pursued by different authorities, openly tolerated by most people, etc.
Like i said, Canadians view immigrants as the root of all ills. They super will not be chill if they learn you're an illegal immigrant regardless of race
I find that the racist shitbags tend to be the loudest. I don't think that most Canadians feel this way, we just hear the bigots most frequently because they won't shut the fuck up for five god damned minutes.
But you are correct, immigrants have been scapegoated a lot. Apparently the fact that the Canadian government hasn't been funding social services enough for decades is their fault.
I live in a racist small town so it's good to hear not everyone is like that lmao
To my limited understanding, Canada has (or had) a teacher shortage and that the work visa requirements for education are more lenient than other fields. As with most countries, a work visa -> permanent residency -> citizenship is the "easiest" path to immigration. The largest hurdle is usually finding a company to sponsor your visa.
We had a teacher shortage, and now we have funding problem because international students basically were covering 50% of university bills because their tuition was inflated so much. The feds have basically crippled foreign student intake in programs so the teacher shortage is likely to get even worse. When I attended in the mid 00s my department already wasn't allowed to print class outlines because it wasn't approved in the budget for teachers. Can't imagine it's gotten better now.
First off: I am by no means an expert.
Pretty sure that if you try to cross without a passport you're going to get turned around 90% of the time, with the other 10% being much worse because canadian border cops are cops. Assuming you do get a passport, you could probably get in by a train or bus somewhere in the northeast going to Toronto or Montreal for recreation (6 months with no visa) and then just not leave. You'd be there illegally, though, and you wouldn't be able to get legitimate work without the appropriate visas/permits. They won't give you a work permit as a non-resident if you have a criminal record. Canada actually has pretty strict immigration requirements that you probably don't meet (things like "has a job lined up and your prospective employer has to prove that there is no resident who could do it").
Before all that, though, 
isn't some paradise. The last federal election, earlier this year, had the liberals squeak out a win over the conservatives entirely due to reflexive anti-Trump backlash. In 4 years, it's likely the conservatives win, and afaik they're just as virulently anti-trans as the republicans. Obviously you have to decide what's best for you, but in my mind, getting 4 years of extremely stressful illegal existence before the fascists take over up there is not much better than just moving to the pacific northwest or something. Note that all of the trans-friendly places in canada will also be major cities with huge cost of living crises.
E: No matter what decision you end up making, just make sure that you've thought it through, and have a concrete plan.
Under 52(2) of the immigration regs, American citizens do not need to hold a valid passport in order to enter Canada to be a temporary resident (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/SOR-2002-227/page-8.html#h-686250). You do, however, have to PROVE your American citizenship which a passport does.
Looks like the options are passport, birth certificate, certificate of citizenship or naturalization, or certificate of Indian status. Never realized you could get in with just a birth certificate. But then again, who carries that with them?
Technically, a US passport that expires during the stay also counts (everyone else, besides the weird exceptions needs to have a passport that is valid for the duration). As far as I know, they might even accept an expired US passport but I wouldnt push that. There were some other exceptions that were up to the minister over they years - like Venezuelan passports even if they were expired were accepted
PNW is full of fascists
but so's everywhere I guess, to slightly varying degrees
True. And you know what, another major thing I overlooked is that canada has a weaker and less well armed paramilitary militia movement.
I’m actually shocked that the Liberals got in again. Nice to see that our voting blocks still don’t want to be bending the knee to US fascists. But yes, I don’t foresee that lasting past next election. That being said I’ve been wrong before.
If whoever's president in 2029 threatens to invade again that'd probably do it, though the conservatives have 4 years to come up with propaganda suggesting they're anti-Trump as opposed to getting caught unaware this time. Outside of that though, I can't see Carney being materially different from Trudeau, and if the government fails to address people's concerns, they will lose long-term. Very classic liberalism.
Yeah that’s how I feel about it too.
Carney is a conservative (was in Harper's cabinet, was a banker in UK and US and is friend with Ghislaine Maxwell) and the canadian public got played by the old 'jangle keys in front of them' into voting for a wolf hoping to keep the bear out. He's now about to sell off a shitload of natural ressources to trump, because he was his chosen plant all along.
I don't follow. Without Trump's threatening to invade, Pollievre would likely have won. Would he not have suited US goals just as much, if not more than Carney?
Why did Trump suddenly do a 180 on PP and started calmly tweeting about how he prefers having a liberal in the canadian parliament. All we hear is "we need to accept X authoritarian, unpopular measure (like pipelines, infringing on indigenous lands, opening natural ressources for exploitation) to combat Trump". But it's his guy: ex Goldman Sachs banker, he became prime minister without elections, he's pictured with Ghislaine Maxwell, plus he made the crown as popular as its ever been in Canada. It was all a psyop and they used the same fear tactics because "PP would be worse". We just elected our Kamala but it didn't even take a token minority person to make us vote for the "least fascist" option.
Pay close attention and you will see that Carney is doing exactly what american and british capital put him there for: strip the copper from the walls while the dumbasses are distracted. Also fuck PP and the conservatives but you cant tell me to vote for a guy that's been under Harper and is a tool of capital to counter "the much farther right than this party already is".
Wait he was in Harper's cabinet?
"Senior associate deputy minister" of Finance apparently. From 2004-2007, so he was actually in with the Liberals for a bit before Harper came in in 2006.
Despite the three qualifying adjectives, it looks like he actually was responsible for quite a bit of policy. I would've figured only an elected representative could become a minister, huh.
Deputy minister (even with adjectives) is a very powerful position in the Canadian federal bureaucracy.
Or Klanada. I'm legit panicking and had personal shit to do (dissociating & panicking Abt being homeless) until rn the last few days
Get a passport ASAP if possible. Have you ever hopped a train before? Freights and stuff have customs and border crossing stuff done way ahead of time so the train keeps moving. Even better if the border is over a body of water and the train crosses a bridge into say...Windsor Ontario.
Your post reminded me that Trump used to talk about annexing Canada and Greenland, but he hasn’t since the Day of Liberation
Oh he brought up the 51st state crap with Canada again recently
That's because the election is over and there is no more need for meddling since his guy is in parliament and actively working to give trump (and the crown) everything they want. Liberals have shown they have the object permanence of sea slugs.
Idk, though as a Mets fan, I'm sorry for your loss.
The second the cubs broke the "It's more a culture than a team" curse they placed it on us.
