My Quest for Citizenship

 In the mid-1980s, our two children were both completing their high school education and were trying to decide what they wanted to do as an adult. There were a few ideas, but the question was, “Would Dad and Mom agree?” Our son wanted to sell real estate, like his father did, but had to be convinced that he was too young. Where would he find a customer who would be willing to work with an 18-year old Realtor?

Our independent daughter wanted to get a business degree, but not anywhere near home. She also wanted to attend a Christian university, to learn more about her spiritual journey, so applied to various colleges and decided that whoever accepted her first, gets her. She ended up in Indiana, then transferred to Washington for her last year, where she met the love of her life.

Shortly after she started her first year, I received a letter from a friend, asking if I had heard about a little known U.S. law that would give Canadians the opportunity for dual citizenship. She thought it probably was a silly rumor but perhaps I would be interested to hear more about it. I definitely was interested and did some investigation. This is what I learned: “Any Canadian who was born before 1947 to American-born parents, had not served in the Canadian Military, and did not have a criminal record, could apply to the U.S. Government for dual citizenship.” Why 1947? Because that was the year that the Canadian Citizenship Act came into effect, with the evolution of Canada as a sovereign and independent nation.

I qualified! My parents were born in the U.S. and their families immigrated to Canada in the early 1900s. My husband and I did a lot of traveling, but would we consider moving to the U.S. in our working years? Not likely! Our daughter may want to stay in the U.S., near friends developed at university, and she would need to have a job. As a dual citizen, I could petition for members of my family to receive a ‘green card’, enabling them to work in the U.S. However, only my daughter has a green card, has married her American sweetheart, and they have raised their family on the West Coast.

As for me, the ‘dual citizen’, I never used my American passport, and kept in a memory box with other treasured items. We had crossed the International board many times without incident, using my Canadian passport, so why complicate a situation by showing the wrong passport at the wrong crossing. To make my situation more complicated, I have two birth certificates, same date, different countries. How would I be able to explain that to a border guard? Even though I reported the error, the U.S. birth certificate was never corrected, insisting that they never made the mistake. I wasn’t born in the U.S., none of my education was in the U.S., I have never worked or owned property in the U.S., and I do not pay taxes in the U.S. Try and explain how and why I got to be a U.S. citizen to an Immigration lawyer!

Don’t you just love government bureaucracy?