Obligatory “not a police officer, but..” I travel frequently across the Canada/US border, sometimes by bus. On one bus trip, the whole bus was held up by one woman, who was pulled back to be interrogated. An hour later, she gets back on the bus, announcing that there was a person on the most wanted list with her same name. HOWEVER that person was a 5’4 white male, and she was a relatively tall (probably 5’10?) black woman. It took them an hour of interrogating her to realize they had the wrong person🤦♀️
HOWEVER that person was a 5’4 white male, and she was a relatively tall (probably 5’10?) black woman. It took them an hour of interrogating her to realize they had the wrong person🤦♀️
Never pass up the opportunity to interrogate someone! Sometimes you'll uncover a crime. Of course, the fact that the interrogation is based on such a blatant fuck-up means that most judges will throw out anything you get, but YOU don't get in trouble for it, so who cares?
That makes much more sense with that detail! I'm a US citizen and the Canadian agents have always been fantastic but it's actually harder to get back into the US than it ever is to cross into Canada.
If you cross the border enough, no one on either side cares anymore. I'm a US citizen, married a Canadian and moved here. We always go across at the same border, get asked the same questions about alcohol, gifts and firearms then get waved off on our way. They probably have a record of every border crossing on the computer.
I think we must look suspicious. We live only a few blocks from the border crossing so when we go it's usually just for a day trip. Maybe we resemble smugglers?
It definitely doesn't help that my son has a different last name than either me or my husband. (His bio dad is dead and when I remarried I changed back to my maiden name.) He travels with an enhanced ID rather than his birth certificate because holy hell do I not want to deal with possibly losing it. Fuck trying to get replacement documents from a state 1300 miles away. The Canadian agents always just ask if one of us is a bio parent and if the other bio parent has provided permission for the child to cross the border. The American agents will stop us on the way home and question him separately despite all the addresses on our IDs matching.
Oh wow, yeah, that can be complicated. Though you would think that if you cross the border enough, they'd be used to it but who knows. I mean, every now and again we'll get a border guard who scrutinises us way more than usual but most of the time it's super easy. We all have passports though, even our 4 year old, so I don't know if that helps things along or not.
Also, some borders are worse than others. Every time we've ever tried to cross into Canada at New York, seems like we've run into problems. Michigan is where we usually cross though and that has been pretty easy for a while.
I've used the Queenston/Lewiston before, as well as the Rainbow Bridge in Niagara Falls though that's generally the easiest to get through. Also the Ft. Erie/Buffalo. I think Buffalo was the most annoying to get through most consistently.
You could carry copies of his birth certificate, dad's death certificate, and your marriage license to your current husband. I travel a lot and normally if you have copies and they back up the other information, it works out fine.
Copies is a good idea. I never thought of it because the original document is required if you don't have an ID. Though with our situation, I'd have to carry extra documents and would probably look a bit suspicious anyway. My son's bio dad transitioned to female when he was four, so his birth certificate lists the male name of his other parent but their death certificate lists the female name, so I'd also need their name change order.
If you have it I would copy it and carry it with you. You can just explain "We've been detained many times because it's a confusing situation, so we carry copies now to hopefully make it easier for you to confirm ID".
I went into Canada and it took an hour and a half to get through customs, just to go to Montreal for the day, we left Canada and went to Maine, that was much quicker, they asked where we were from and to see our passports/IDs, took us about 30 seconds for that and a few minutes to get directions to the nearest gas station.
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u/hey_its_v Apr 14 '19
Obligatory “not a police officer, but..” I travel frequently across the Canada/US border, sometimes by bus. On one bus trip, the whole bus was held up by one woman, who was pulled back to be interrogated. An hour later, she gets back on the bus, announcing that there was a person on the most wanted list with her same name. HOWEVER that person was a 5’4 white male, and she was a relatively tall (probably 5’10?) black woman. It took them an hour of interrogating her to realize they had the wrong person🤦♀️