A B.C. small business owner is warning other Canadians to be careful when transporting goods across the U.S. border after she says a mistake involving a roughly $20 commercial vehicle fee resulted in her NEXUS privileges being revoked. Suzanne Smith used to consider the United States a second home, operating several stores south of the border, including in nearby Birch Bay, Wash. But she says rising costs and fewer Canadian customers crossing the border eventually forced her to close those locations. “My business is the casualty of war,” Smith said, referring to the ongoing tariff and trade war between the two countries. Until last month, Smith was still travelling to the U.S. to pick up goods for her Canadian location. During a recent trip, she says she encountered a Homeland Security checkpoint while heading back toward Canada. “Eight officers were on the side of the road stopping cars going into Canada,” Smith said. “I thought, ‘No problem, we’re good here. I’ve got my documents.’ And they started rapid-fire questioning me.” Smith says she was told she should have entered the U.S. through a commercial lane instead of the NEXUS lane and should have paid a roughly $20 commercial vehicle fee. A few days later, she says, her NEXUS privileges were revoked. “At the end of the day, I made a mistake, but it would normally come with a small warning,” she said. U.S. immigration lawyer Len Saunders says NEXUS denials or revocations are typically associated with criminal activity or immigration violations, and believes the consequence in Smith’s case far outweighs the mistake. “I kind of equate it to: You’re driving along and you’re (caught) speeding, (and) rather than getting a warning, having your driver’s license actually taken away for life,” Saunders said. Saunders says another B.C. business owner recently came to him with a similar story. “I’ve been in Blaine practising immigration law for 25 years. I’ve never heard of this,” he said. Saunders says the fee is typically associated with commercial vehicles, but the cases he encountered involved small business owners using their personal vehicles to carry relatively small loads of goods. There is a process to appeal revoked NEXUS privileges, but Saunders says getting them reinstated can be an expensive and difficult process with no guarantee of success. “It’s definitely an uphill battle,” he said. For now, Smith says she isn’t prepared to take on that fight. Instead, she wants other business owners to know what happened to her. “I want other business owners to be warned that it’s not business as usual in the U.S. anymore,” she said. CTV News reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for comment but did not receive a response before deadline.
