A reprieve for snowbirds? Trump Administration sued over traveller registration requirement

Sophia Harris · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 04, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 9 minutes ago

Immigration advocates are suing the Trump Administration implicit its upcoming registration request for non-U.S. citizens staying longer than 29 days, offering a imaginable reprieve for Canadian snowbirds.

The U.S.-based American Immigration Council and spouse organizations launched the suit this week to effort to quash the registration rule. They assertion the medication failed to question nationalist input connected an ill-conceived directive affecting millions of people.

On Tuesday, the advocacy groups volition inquire the District Court for the District of Columbia to enforce a preliminary injunction blocking the registration request earlier its April 11 rollout.

"We consciousness powerfully that this regularisation was issued successful an improper and amerciable way," said Michelle Lapointe, ineligible manager astatine the American Immigration Council. "What they're rolling retired is simply a strategy that is arbitrary, it's confusing, it doesn't marque sense."

In January, U.S. president Trump issued an enforcement bid called "Protecting the American People Against Invasion." As of April 11, it requires definite overseas nationals staying 30 days oregon longer, including galore Canadians crossing by land, to registry online with the U.S. government. 

The registration signifier asks travellers for a lengthy database of idiosyncratic details, specified arsenic one's U.S. address, and wherever one's parents were born. Non-Canadians volition besides person to taxable fingerprints. 

The migration advocacy groups articulation galore Canadian snowbirds who person raised concerns since learning astir the registration regularisation past month. 

"I consciousness arsenic if we are being targeted arsenic Canadians," said Rena Hans of Toronto, who owns a condo successful Florida. "This is giving maine benignant of like, a small spot of a totalitarian vibe."

Stephen Fine, president of the company Snowbird Advisor, which runs a assets website, says helium has received hundreds of emails from snowbirds asking questions astir the registration requirement.

"There's a batch of anxiousness and a batch of confusion." 

Fine says 1 main occupation is that the rule's good people tin beryllium hard to decipher. 

"The regulations came retired successful a hurry. There inactive isn't a batch of clarity connected however you implicit the process, who's required to implicit the process."

He says if the suit manages to quash the regulations, it would beryllium invited quality for snowbirds. 

$5,000 good oregon imprisonment

Part of the disorder stems from the information that not each foreigners staying 1 period oregon longer indispensable register. Canadians issued an physics arrival/departure grounds erstwhile entering the U.S. volition beryllium exempt. According to migration lawyers CBC News consulted, typically, planetary aerial passengers are issued specified records, and onshore travellers are not.

To find retired their status, travellers request to input their question accusation online via a U.S. migration website upon arrival. 

Those required to registry indispensable transportation impervious of registration astatine each times oregon look fines of up to $5,000, oregon imprisonment for up to six months, oregon both.

Lapointe says that due to the fact that the rules are complex, radical could unknowingly interruption them, and find themselves successful trouble. 

"They could beryllium picked up, arrested, detained, fined."

WATCH | Canadian snowbirds 'insulted' by registration requirement: 

Snowbirds David and Dianne Fine (no narration to Stephen Fine) accidental they program to instrumentality location to Hepworth, Ont., earlier the April 11 deadline to debar immoderate problems.

The couple, who are wintering astatine an RV parkland successful Brownsville, Texas, completed the online registration signifier successful precocious March. However, they person yet to person authoritative impervious of their registration that they tin people and amusement if required. 

"If we don't person the close documentation and they hap to drawback america earlier April 11, I conjecture it means that we spell to jail, oregon look a $5,000 fine, oregon both," said Fine, offering a worst-case scenario. 

U.S. migration lawyer Rosanna Berardi told CBC News she doesn't judge Canadians volition look specified repercussions.

However, Fine says, pursuing caller quality reports of heightened migration scrutiny nether the Trump administration, he's not taking immoderate chances.

"[From] what I'm seeing going connected successful the States the past fewer months, we don't cognize if there'd beryllium leniency," helium said. "That's what we're a small disquieted about."

CBC News reached retired to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Homeland Security to clarify if, travel April 11, the paperwork the Fine's presently person — an email stating the U.S. authorities has received their completed registration — is acceptable.

Neither responded to that question, oregon to different questions regarding clarification of the registration rules.

They besides did not remark straight connected the lawsuit. Instead, some emailed the aforesaid one-paragraph reply that re-stated the caller rule, and ended by stating that the registration request "aligns with the Trump Administration's ongoing efforts to heighten the information and information of the United States." 

Some snowbirds not definite they'll instrumentality to U.S.

The suit specifically references Canadian snowbirds, suggesting if the request deters them from wintering successful the U.S., it could origin fiscal harm to Americans. 

"They're a boon to galore communities, peculiarly successful places similar Florida," said Lapointe of the  Immigration Council. "This is an contented that the authorities should person looked at."

The Fines haven't made up their minds if they'll instrumentality to the U.S. adjacent winter, citing the registration request and related issues, specified arsenic Trump's commercialized war. 

They anticipation the suit is palmy truthful that if they bash return, they'll person 1 little happening to interest about.

"We're beauteous blessed that this could spell done and instrumentality distant each the confusion," said Fine.