Even though there was no interview, some parents had to wait for years before their child’s application was processed
Annie Jensen’s son Louis, who is two years old, has been on a waiting list for almost all of his life. The application for the child’s Nexus card has been in the works for almost 24 months, which is twice as long as the federal government says applicants should wait.
Jensen is a citizen of both the United States and Canada. She often travels from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Blaine, Washington, to see her parents. Her family has used the Nexus trusted-traveller program for a long time. This program lets pre-approved travelers go through separate, faster lines when entering or leaving the United States.
But since she sent in her son’s application in July 2021, her family has had to wait in the sometimes hours-long line at the border. His application has been “pending” for almost two years, and she has tried to call the office in charge many times to find out what’s going on, but hasn’t heard anything.
“I don’t understand why it’s taking so long. “Applications for children should be easy, especially if the parents have been checked out,” said Jensen.
“What could he possibly have in his past that would cause worry?”
The family of Jensen is not alone. Dozens of families complained about the process on social media, saying that young children had to wait up to 24 months.
The Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) didn’t answer CBC News’s question about how many child applications are pending, but it did say that some applications “may take up to 12-14 months to complete.”
In a statement given to CBC News, the agency said, “As part of our due diligence, when processing applications for children, both CBSA and U.S. CBP do checks during the interview process to make sure that there is nothing that would stop the child from moving between borders, such as a birth certificate or a custody agreement.”
Backlog not cleare
To get a Nexus card, applicants must go through a risk assessment by both the CBSA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, pass an interview, get their picture taken, and give some biometric data.
Registration for the program was put on hold for almost a year in Canada after Nexus enrollment centers closed in the United States. This was partly because of a fight over whether or not U.S. agents could carry guns on Canadian soil.
Because of this break and the fact that offices were closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the backlog of applications had grown to 295,133 by May 2022. To clear the backlog, the federal government reopened two Nexus offices and promised a new interview option.
But a year later, there doesn’t seem to have been much progress. In May of 2023, the CBSA said that there were 276 725 applications that hadn’t been processed yet.
In a letter to a family waiting to be approved, a federal worker wrote on behalf of Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino that “when the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) receives applications for assessment, they are not categorized by the age of the applicant, nor is the Agency able to group applications to have them risk-assessed as a family.”
‘Let’s get the ball rolling
Jensen, her partner, and her oldest child all have active Nexus cards, but without one for their toddler, they can’t cross as a family. Jensen said that her family had to do something drastic because of the situation so that they wouldn’t have to sit in the car for hours at the border with two young children.
“Sometimes my husband bikes down with my son to avoid traffic and go through the bike lane, which is always a little faster. “My daughter and I will go through the Nexus lane together if there’s a line,” she said.
“It just seems like a burden that we don’t need, since we all have Nexus. He is 2 years old.He has never been in trouble with the law, so let’s get this going.”
Tammy Yasrobi, who lives in Vancouver and often visits family south of the border, said that the current application system is a “black box pending state” that doesn’t give those waiting much information.
When her first daughter was born, it took only 13 weeks for her Nexus card to be processed. But the application for her second child has been in the works for six months with no news.
“I’d like to know more about how long I should expect to have to wait. “I think that’s something they could do with little trouble,” she said.
“In the future, it would be great if someone looked at this program and decided if it made sense for babies to go through the Nexus process.”
Yasrobi says that young children who want to join Nexus can’t be interviewed or complete the biometric part of the application because they can’t give fingerprints or have their retinas scanned.
“It’s funny to think of an interview for a baby. You’ve interviewed me. You have talked to my partner. We’re done with the process. What do you need to know about a baby that takes so long to learn? she told me.
Jensen said that the long wait time has made it hard for her to visit her parents just across the border, especially after being separated for so many years. She wants the federal government to clear out the backlog of child applications that is clogging up the system as soon as possible.
“We live close to our family, but it feels like they are still too far away.