ext_139916 ([identity profile] beckythomson.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] kevin_standlee 2008-10-23 04:38 pm (UTC)

Nothing I can offer but sympathy and mutual outrage.

John and I spent a day in Canada a few years ago, and John was stopped at the border trying to come home because he didn't have the 'proper documentation.' He was a naturalized U.S. citizen, traveling with his wife (who was born in the U.S.) and with a Social Security card and a legitimate job in the U.S. But because he was born in Scotland and was a citizen in Canada before he came to the U.S., this jerk wanted either a passport (John never did get one) or his citizenship papers.

I don't know why they finally recapitulated and let him come home, but I remember both of us spending an hour asking every official we could find "just what do you expect us to do?" I suppose at worse case they could have made me drive all the way home to dig out his citizenship papers (which he hadn't needed for a couple decades).

Of course, if he were alive today he would have gotten a passport, since the Canada to U.S. border has been tightened so much.

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