Surprisingly US citizen

planckfund

answer the question though....

planckfund

pls give me an example of when this has ever happened..... or what the putative punishment might be. Sent to Rikers in manacles for 1 to 99?

planckfund

Just curious.... I would say you could interpret that any way you want...? Clearly the President of the US has the right to allow any US citizen to come and go with or without a US passport and could delegate that right to anyone he so chooses. Welcome to America.

EdSwippet

planckfund said:

pls give me an example of when this has ever happened...

American Passport - Boris Johnson

Last Sunday lunchtime we were boarding a flight to Mexico, via Houston, Texas, and we presented six valid British passports. As soon as the Continental Airlines security guy saw my passport, he shook his head. ‘Were you born in New York?’ he asked. ‘Have you ever carried an American passport?’
Yes, I said, but it had long since expired. ‘I am afraid we have a problem,’ he said. ‘The US Immigration say you have to travel on an American passport if you want to enter the United States.’ B-but I’m British, I said, and my children chorused their agreement. Had the guy stuck around a moment longer, I would have told him how jolly British I was — but luckily for him he’d gone off in search of reinforcements.

When the ranking officer arrived, the story was the same. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but you’ll have to go to the US Embassy tomorrow morning and get a new American passport.’ But I don’t want an American passport, I said, inspiration striking me. I tell you what: I renounce my American citizenship. I disclaim it. I discard it.
‘That’s not good enough, sir,’ he said. ‘I need some official document saying that you are no longer American,’ and that, of course, is the point of this piece.

I make this formal, public, and, I hope, legally valid renunciation, because as a result of this moronic rule I had to ask my wife (who bore this latest !!!!!!-up with amazing good humour) to take the children on her own to Houston, and I then had to spend a stonking sum on another ticket. Because the Americans insisted I was American, and that it was only as an American that I could travel to America, America was the one country that I had to avoid.

planckfund

Ha.... good one thanks ---- but his passport states he was born in the US and it was the airline who objected not the US Border, who I have never heard of using this argument to refuse entry though I can honestly say I've not tried too hard to find out. "You are born in the US therefore prove to me you are not a US citizen". I share Boris's (in this case) perplexity.   Surely it would be up to them to prove you are, and must be a frequent occurrence for Canadians particularly. 

EdSwippet

planckfund said:

... "You are born in the US therefore prove to me you are not a US citizen". I share Boris's (in this case) perplexity.   Surely it would be up to them to prove you are, and must be a frequent occurrence for Canadians particularly. 

With only some very rare exceptions, anyone born in the US is automatically a US citizen. And certainly, someone who says they had a US passport in the past definitely either is or was a US citizen. In that case, the only way to prove one is an ex-US citizen is with a Certificate of Loss of Nationality. Which is what the airline was looking for here. And which Boris could of course not supply, because at that point he was still a US citizen.

No need for "them" to prove anything. The burden of proof here is on the traveller. Perhaps if he'd pushed the point with the airline he might have overcome this. Or maybe not. Airlines are paranoid about being held to account for stuff like this. And anyway, who wants this kind of hassle when travelling?

In practice, USCIS cannot really refuse a US citizen entry, so if you can get past the airline or other controls and reach the actual border (trivial for Canadians) you will probably be fine. Perhaps provided that you can then somehow convince USCIS that you are a US citizen, yet without a US passport. There seems to be no defined penalty for contravening this 'you must enter on a US passport' law. As you say, it could be fairly commonly seen on the US/Canada border.

planckfund

Certainly a warning --- personally I would have lied to the airline about the US passport --- you would have thought that came naturally to Boris. . .  Don't ask don't tell    . Very American