The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has officially reopened two NEXUS and FAST enrollment centres in Canada enabling applicants to now schedule interviews at the Lansdowne, Ont. (Thousand Islands Bridge) and Fort Erie, Ont. (Peace Bridge) enrolment centres. The agency says more Canadian enrolment centres will open at additional select land border crossings in the future. Notably, however, applicants will still have to cross the border for an interview with US agents.
The two-phased process has been operating at the Thousand Islands site since September as a pilot project, with the Peace Bridge centre added just last week. The CBSA says the official reopening of these centres with CBSA officers is the first phase of a solution to address the NEXUS and FAST backlog by reducing wait times for applicants.
However, it’s a far cry from how NEXUS interviews have traditionally been conducted in both countries, with applicants sitting down for an in-person interview that’s jointly conducted by officers from the two agencies in the same room. And also done so in non-border locations, like Toronto airport, that are more easily accessible to applicants or existing members needing renewals.
That process has been going on as normal in the US since April, when the 13 NEXUS centres south of the border re-opened for joint interviews after a two-year pandemic-driven hiatus.
US Customs and Border Protection, however, won’t send agents to staff centres in Canada without being guaranteed the same legal protections they enjoy on US soil (believed to include the right to carry firearms) – a condition the federal government in Canada considers a non-starter.
The impasse turned into a full-blown diplomatic row in October when Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s US envoy, said the program was being “held hostage” to a unilateral attempt to renegotiate the bilateral preclearance agreement under which NEXUS was established.
Business leaders and elected officials in both countries have been pressing the two sides to find a solution, describing NEXUS as a critical component of the cross-border trade and commercial ties between Canada and the US.
The NEXUS program currently has over 1.7 million members.
Interview process
Applicants who are conditionally approved for NEXUS must complete the first portion of their interview in the two-step process at Lansdowne or Fort Erie and complete the second portion at Alexandria Bay and Buffalo, NY, respectively.
Editor’s note: Canadian applicants are advised (and directed by the CBSA web site) to book their US interview through the Trusted Traveller portal; however, at press time, that site did not list the applicable US locations.
Canadians are also advised that they can also continue to complete a one-step process interview at other enrollment centres in the US, though a Travel Industry Today sampling of “next available appointment” options typically showed the soonest dates to be next spring (and as far out as June at Niagara Falls, NY).
Existing members can also renew their membership online prior to the expiry date to retain their membership benefits for up to five years while they await an interview (should they need one).