Dokument #1332097
IRB – Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (Autor)
The information that follows was provided
by an immigration officer at the O'Hare International
Airport/Chicago Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) office
during a 31 August 1998 telephone interview.
Immigration control is carried out at the
first U.S. port of entry where the ship docks. If a foreign ship or
a ship with foreign (non-Canadian or U.S. citizen) crew arrives at
the Illinois International Port (at Chicago) directly from a
non-U.S. port of entry, the ship's crew must apply for admission to
the United States. When the ship docks, an immigration officer
inspects the crew, who must be in possession of non-immigrant visas
and valid passports or seaman's books. The shipping company can
also apply and obtain a visa for the entire crew; in such cases,
the visa will be attached to the crew list, and not to the
individual travel documents of the crew. The crewmen do not keep
their passports or books when in port, as these are kept by the
ship's captain; the crewmen are issued and are expected to carry
with them while on land an I-95 document, which is a crewman's
landing permit valid for a 29-day stay in the United States.
For additional information on procedures
and controls for arriving ship crews, please consult the U. S. Code
of Federal Regulations, parts No. 251 and 252, available in the
Refworld database.
The information that follows was provided
by a Customs Inspector at the U. S. Customs Service central office
at O'Hare International Airport during a 31 August 1998 telephone
interview.
Customs inspections of ships' crews are not
carried out with every arriving foreign ship; they may be carried
out randomly or when circumstances warrant. Customs searches are
not intended to determine the immigration status or identity of
crewmen.
The Illinois International Port, also known
as the Port of Chicago, is an international port that has handled
international traffic for many years. Although confirmation of the
arrival of a specific ship in March 1994 to the Research
Directorate is not possible for the purposes of this Response, the
inspector pointed out that traffic at the Port of Chicago is very
sparse in the winter months.
A staff officer of the Saint Lawrence
Seaway Development Corporation office in Ottawa stated during a 1
September 1998 telephone interview that the Saint Lawrence Seaway
was closed to all traffic from December 1993 to 5 April 1994; the
latter date being the day that the Seaway was re-opened to traffic.
The staff officer indicated that the Port of Chicago and some other
Great Lakes ports do handle ship traffic between some of the Great
Lakes, but no transatlantic route could have passed through the
Seaway during the first three months of 1994.
This Response was prepared after
researching publicly accessible information currently available to
the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is
not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any
particular claim to refugee status or asylum.
References
Saint Lawrence Seaway Development
Corporation, Ottawa. 1 September 1998. Telephone interview with
staff officer.
United States Customs Service, O'Hare
International Airport. 31 August 1998. Telephone interview with
Customs Inspector.
United States Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS), O'Hare International Airport,
Chicago. 31 August 1998. Telephone interview with immigration
officer.
Additional Sources Consulted
Illinois International Port District
authority, Chicago.