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Dual Citizenship and the Law/Immigration Concern

T

terriersrule

Newbie
Dec 3, 2010
2
0
Hello

I have a slightly unusual question, and some people might think that I overthink things, but the truth is, my husband and I have had so many negative experiences as of late that we now question everything.

I will condense this as quickly as I can. My husband is a Canadian Native American and I am a dual citizen (Canada/USA) but I was born in Canada. We have lived and worked in both countries, but a short while ago we both lose our jobs and moved up to Canada again to find work.

Due to some complications with something an agent put in his passport (long story), we may have trouble being able to visit or return to the USA together. I don't want to leave without my husband though. Meanwhile, due to circumstances, I have bills that I couldn't take care of as I lost everything in the USA and had to rely on my husband's parents to help me come up here. I have wanted to go back and take care of my business, and also send up our things that are still down there (my family down there is holding them for me). I don't have any super large sums of money I owe, but I am still concerned. I don't want to face something I am not prepared for.

I have heard that citizens of the USA as of late are not being properly served when collections get a judgement from them. The collections are doing this in an underhanded fashion and even lying that they served the paperwork to the individuals and then the individual gets in trouble. If something like that happened to me and I ended up with misdemeanours from not being able to attend court down there, would I still be able to return to Canada as a dual citizen? Yes I know this sounds really paranoid and it probably won't happen as I plan to return soon, but I was just wondering if anyone knows anything about this sort of thing.

Meanwhile my family in the USA is keeping tabs for any paperwork that may come for me. We cannot take care of these matters up here and that is why now that my husband has made some money we want to return and take care of those things.

Can anyone help please? I feel sick every day worrying about all of these issues. Like I said, I'm probably overthinking, but I'd really just like to know so I can stop worrying.
 
A a Canadian citizen, you can not be refused entry to Canada.
 
Leon said:
A a Canadian citizen, you can not be refused entry to Canada.
Click to expand...
Failing to respond to a civil lawsuit (which debt collections are) may result in a default judgment against you, but it is not a crime. Someone who is falsifying service is probably committing perjury, which is a crime. Reputable process servers won't do this.

As a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, you cannot be refused entry to, or deported from, either country.
 
YorkFactory said:
Failing to respond to a civil lawsuit (which debt collections are) may result in a default judgment against you, but it is not a crime. Someone who is falsifying service is probably committing perjury, which is a crime. Reputable process servers won't do this.

As a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada, you cannot be refused entry to, or deported from, either country.
Click to expand...

Okay, so to reiterate, even a dual citizen with some possible arrests from bench warrants in the USA can still re-enter Canada if they are also Canadian citizens? I worry a lot because of all the bad stuff that has happened to us lately, so I guess I'm just paranoid now. *sighs*
 
You cannot be refused admission to Canada or the United States, but keep in mind that entering one country means leaving the other. When we moved up, there were U.S. customs or immigration officers (I don't remember which) checking documents for people in cars headed toward Fort Erie via the Peace Bridge. I have no idea what they were looking for, but they weren't checking names against any sort of database (they were just standing in the roadway).

Failure to respond to a civil lawsuit is not going to get a bench warrant issued against you.
 
This post will mainly just confirm what has already been written, but:

1. If your husband is a Native American born in Canada he has the right to enter and live in the U.S. Nothing anyone puts in his passport should change that.
2. It is not a crime to fail to appear for a civil suit, you can only get a default judgment entered against you. If you were not served properly you can get this judgment thrown out, but it would not appear anything that has to do with criminal records or entering or leaving any country.
3. A person can never be denied entry to the country they are a citizen in. You could be a former serial killer and they'd still have to let you in. :)
 
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