That can't be true; at least, there must be a hell of a lot more to it.
Why would Canada want to pay provide prison space for a foreign national who's committed such mundane a crime as non-cooperation, and without ill-affect on any Canadian citizens?
But a Canadian citizen they will arrest and charge with obstruction of their job.
They already have laws that criminalise even possession of certain pornographics drawings or stories. Make no mistakes, Canada is not a free country and has no problem with imprisonment for victimless crime.
http://www.canada-usblog.com/2016/08/16/the-waiting-game-we-...
* Canadian' border can ask you for your local passwords.
* You can refuse - at which point, if you are Canadian/PR, you are allowed to enter the country but your device is confiscated and sent to Ottawa for further examination.
* They can NOT ask for online passwords (like your dropbox account for example). THAT SAID, if you give them your local password, and you are logged in to Dropbox, it's fair game.
Furthermore, this has not been through the Supreme Court to set precedence.
http://www.canada-usblog.com/2016/08/16/the-waiting-game-we-...
I am not saying what the CBSA did was legal (as the case was dropped), but not handing over local passwords is considered "obstruction of the officer's job" by the CBSA (for which he was charged).
So I'm assuming that if they did want to charge you, they could.
And his case wasn't dropped. He plead guilty.
And the Kiwi's might ask, but only to find out if you are violating quarantine regulations.
https://bccla.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/CBSA-FOI-Docs.p...
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/guilty-plea-ends-ca...
There is no reason to believe that CBSA under Trudeau would have dumber policies than under Harper, I fact the opposite.
As for New Zealand:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...
From what I've read, I'd suggest that the law is unclear at this point. It will probably be decided by the Supreme Court within a decade. But I find the ambiguity frustrating...
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/guilty-plea-ends-ca...
Some airports are designed in a way to quickly facilitate this if the government ever changed its mind (IAH and LAX TBIT, I believe), but today none of our airports are set up for international sterile zones.
From the perspective of an American departing internationally, this is a bonus since you don't have to wait in line for exit formalities.
But there are many, many connecting flights through DFW, Houston, LAX, and SFO. The direct flight costs upwards of $500 more, often a 60% or higher premium. That's the value of avoiding transit through the USA and the visa and CIS procedures involved. (Actually, the first $100 could be the usual price for a direct flight over a connection, but the same $500+ price increment seems to apply to connecting flights.)
Aeromexico is not known for its excellent seats, service, or food (though they're fine as airlines go). It's all about avoiding US officials.
Are the countries on the continent of South America not generally considered a part of Latin America? Because there are other options from Santiago, Sao Paolo, Rio, etc. to Tokyo. Some of the options are on Air Canada, with a stop in Toronto which avoids U.S. airports but presumably not U.S. airspace so there may still be some additional scrutiny at departure.
You don't actually have to go all the way to a South American city, Panama City has Air Canada flights to Tokyo. It looks like the other carriers (Emirates, KLM, Turkish Airlines) have stops in a South American city first. The Air Canada flights aren't much more expensive but the European & Asian-based carriers are much more expensive than the flights with stops in the U.S.
Technically, every country in South America is considered a part of Latin America except British Guyana, Suriname, and France. Not including islands like the Malvinas or the ABC islands, of course.
---
I should have specified one single flight. Of course you can fly to Dubai from São Paulo and then to Seoul or to Sydney from Santiago and then on to Peking.
But direct flights are very limited.
French Guiana?
Well, sort of. Looking briefly at many maps of France (in French), the inclusion of the DOMs are relatively rare, in contrast to the inclusion of Alaska and Hawaii on most US maps. Corsica is about as prevalent as Alaska and Hawaii (probably more so), while Guyana and the other DOMs are about as prevalent as Puerto Rico.
I also don't know that excluding French Guiana from "Latin America" is actually correct anyway. French is a romance language.
If you mean direct flights to Tokyo, yes there are no Santiago to Tokyo flights.
Yes, and this is why I will happily pay airlines more to transfer in another country that is not America (e.g. Canada, Mexico). It sucks because it makes travel more expensive, but US airports are not traveler friendly (they could start by having international transfer zones so you don't have to do security again) and the TSA is a bloody nightmare.
I also avoid travel to the US. There are plenty of interesting travel destinations which are not America you can visit.
For Americans impacted by this, absolutely please write your representatives and ask they tone down this madness. For the rest of the world, if you can avoid traveling to the US, do so. Vote with your wallet and pick somewhere else.