TORONTO: Canadian “snowbirds”, who head south for the winter months, got their feathers ruffled over a proposed US immigration rule that could limit their stay in US states to 30 days, but US officials have tried to calm their fears.

As many as 550,000 Canadians, so-called snowbirds, travel south each year usually between mid-October and April, populating warmer US states like Arizona, California, Florida and Texas for up to six months, according to the Canadian Snowbird Association.

The group expressed concern over a recent proposed US Immigration and Naturalization Service regulation issued in April that would allow all B2 visitors — all tourists — to stay in the United States for a 30-day period unless an INS inspector determined otherwise.

There was “a misperception that the proposed rule would limit all non-immigrants — all tourists — to a 30-day period of stay in the United States and nothing could be further from the truth,” said INS spokesman Chris Bentley, speaking from Washington.

On Thursday, US Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, meeting with Canadian Deputy Prime Minister John Manley in Buffalo, New York, tried to calm these fears, promising written assurances.

Ridge said while he had provided verbal reassurances to Manley that it would not apply to Canadian snowbirds, “we also agreed to provide more formal recognition of that in writing to the deputy prime minister through the appropriate federal agencies.

There is no official estimate on how much money Canadian snowbirds inject into the US economy, but strong support on the issue from US lawmakers — including Florida Governor Jeb Bush — suggests their tourism bucks would be sorely missed.

Ridge’s promise will likely be welcomed in Florida, the state most populated by Canadian snowbirds where one area is called “le petit Quebec” due to the number of Quebeckers temporarily invading their ranks.

The 10-year-old snowbird association, first founded to address health care coverage issues for Canadian seniors residing abroad part of the year, says most snowbirds are retirees making a lifestyle choice.

By heading south, “they are not at risk of getting influenza in the winter. They are not at risk of falling or breaking a hip on an icy pavement. They are not at risk of having a heart attack because they are shoveling snow,” she said.

While the September 11 attacks had little, if any, impact on Canadian snowbirds heading south, the continual weak Canadian dollar compared to the US dollar appears to be keeping some away, according to local reports.

The Canadian dollar has lost nearly seven per cent of its value compared with the greenback since Jan 2000.—AFP