In effect exiled?
I seriously doubt it… though they can question you quite a lot. My passport has lots of stamps from places that draw attention (Syria, Yemen, etc.) and I am resident in the UAE… I tend to have to answer lots of questions.
There was a case of two naturalized US citizens originally from Pakastan who were originally refused entry unless they submit to questioning. cite
However, they were later let in. cite
IANAL, but I believe that US citizens cannot be barred from reentry. If they are wanted, then they may face prosecution, but I’ve never heard of anyone else barred reentry.
This has always irked me. Well, lately. We’re soon to be required to have a passport to re-enter the USA from Canada. But what happens if I forget my passport? It’s easy to do, I’m not even sure it’s in my car now. Will I really be denied entry? Perhaps I’d have to submit to questioning and be delayed, but will I really be prevented from entering? Take it a step further – let’s say I want to protest this requirement, and I choose never to take my passport with me to Canada*. At some point all of the immigration officers are going to know I’m a troublemaker. I suppose they could make up charges, or simply delay me more and more, or have customs tear my car apart, and generally make things unpleasant, but will they really bar me from entry?
Really, it’s an easy crossing, at least hereabouts. To get into Canada, you’re supposed to need proof of citizenship, but what usually suffices is just plain old nothing, or a drivers license.
Response deleted.
Would exile be constitutional?
Yes. If you refuse to provide proof of citizenship, they can deny you entry. This means a passport for air travelers, although you can still use a driver’s license and birth certificate if entering by land.
This isn’t exile, though. Presumably you would eventually end your “protest” and consent to identify yourself.
Better get some memory pills. Just this week my neighbor called me from Bangladesh airport: He had forgotten his yellow immunizaation card and he wanted it faxed to the officials. They got it but kept asking for the original. He got out after a wait of 36 hours and continued temperature exams.
But you’re reinforcing my point. The license and birth certificate are the normal means for most people for getting back and forth to Canada. They constitute proof of citizenship. A passport does the same. But the soon-to-implement requirement is for a passport (or green card). So assuming I don’t bring a passport (but otherwise have proof of citizenship) then, [everything I said above].
Wasn’t the guy with superTB denied re-entry? (IIRC, he snuck in at a sleepier part of the frontier.)
Why doesn’t Canada require a passport from all people crossing the border from America then? I know it’s kind of annoying for Canada to require people to have to bow to US policy decisions but really it would work out much better.
I’ve not heard anything about it, but logically, they may do want to do so in the future. Not for reasons like Brazil where they just want to be punitive, but for more practical reasons, like ensuring that you have the ability to, you know, actually leave Canada when you’re done there.
With the low US dollar, we should be charging for entrance visa for Canadians at land crossings. If we charge enough of them $20 ($20 Canadian, thankyouverymuch), maybe we can make Canada cheap again. I tell you, my last trip was depressing when my per diem was still based on $1.30 to the real dollar.
The US cannot deny entry to a US citizen (although I guess they could insist on quarantine–that hadn’t occurred to me till I read one of the posts), but they can question whether you are a US citizen.
Just last week, I saw an ad in a newspaper placed by the Canadian government saying that after such and such date, you will be required to have photo id plus proof of citizenship to enter the US. The ad, taken literally, said a passport alone is not enough. Unless a passport is considered both a photo-id, which it is, and proof of citizenship. It was very carelessly worded. My son just visited with is wife and one year old and he was careful to get a passport for the one year old before crossing the border.
Historical note: until WWI, passports were only for VIPs. Ordinary people did not need and did not have passports. People coming from Europe to US or Canada were assumed to be immigrants and once they were, there were no further formalities, no need for work permits, no SS cards, etc. In the inter-bellum period, everyone traveling to the new world from the old needed a passport, but no documentation was needed to travel anywhere in or between north and south America (and the Caribbean, I assume). This ended after WWII, but no documents were needed to cross between US and Canada until relatively recently. A driver’s licence was sufficient, but I saw one woman cross with nothing but a dept. store credit card and I knew some who–for some philosophical reason refused to carry any id claim (I cannot really attest to this) that was always able to seet-talk his way across the border, at least in the 70s. In Europe, in the 60s you really needed a passport to cross any border. Now tih the EC, you seemed to be able to cross between continental EC countries without seeing a border guard of any kind. This was not true of the UK, which as of 1991 at least, still examined everyone coming on the hovercraft from Calais.
I can attest to this. Legally, you’ve always been required to have proof of citizenship, but until after 9/11 was any real credence paid to it. Normal routine was always just answering the border guards’ questions. It was rare to be asked for so much as your driver’s license. After 9/11, though, they expect you to have your license at a minimum. One of my suppliers says he crosses all the time with just his license – the worst they can do is send him back, according to him. Me? I have a passport, so I use it just for convenience. I don’t even bother to wait to be asked; I just hand it out the window as I pull up. Sometimes the officer waves me off, though, and doesn’t bother looking, but that’s probably just because I enter frequently and they already have a good idea of who I am from reading my license plate.
That’s interesting, but there were earlier times when passports were required, even for ordinary people. I’ve recently read that when Canada was still a French colony (before 1760), a passport was required to get to New France from France and vice versa. As well, during the British military regime that followed the Conquest (1760-1763), the cities of Montreal, Trois-Rivières and Quebec City were administered by separate British military governors, and people actually needed a passport to get from one administration to the other. I wouldn’t be surprised if Britain and the American colonies also had similar arrangements.
Of course, I guess we could argue that these were really more like visitor permits issued by a government and not true diplomatic passports.
The US government, and the president in particular can exile anyone via any number of methods. One in current use is to declare the person an enemy combatant and hold him in Guantanamo.
And the quarantine method mentioned.
A lot of dual nationals and emigrants may actually have denounced citizenship, or such documents can be alleged.
A simple arrest warrant for a trumped up charge of treason would do for de facto exile.
The mission of this board is fighting ignorance, not spreading it. Just because you heard it on Coast to Coast AM doesn’t make it true.
I’d be extremely impressed if you could find me a single case of a US citizen being held at Guantanamo.
Super TB-guy (also known as Andrew Speaker) was held in quarantine at Grady Memorial Hospital and later the National Jewish Medical and Research Center, both well within the United States. Had the border guards at the Canadian border acted appropriately when they examined his flagged passport, he would have been taken into custody, not refused entry to the US.
I think you mean “renounced.” There is no requirement that a US citizen renounce his citizenship in order to hold another citizenship. In fact, renouncing US citizenship is fairly difficult. Cecil covered the process here.
This makes less sense than Paris Hilton sponsoring a teen abstinence campaign.
An arrest warrant for anything can not possibly result in exile, either de facto or de jure. Furthermore,
[sub]U.S. Const. Art. III § 3[/sub]
The punishment for treason is defined in the US code.
[sub]18 U.S.C. § 2381[/sub]
“Exile” does not appear as a punishment for treason or any other federal crime.
Fisrt off, you are wrong to insult me for spreading ignorance. That is an outright lie!
And also, I have never heard of “Coast to Coast AM”, which you seem to listen to.
I don’t listen to any form of hate radio or hate TV news, which you apparently listen to.
And as for treason, the punishment only applies when they are convicted,
If you don’t comprehend how threat of punishment can create “de facto exile” (note, I did not say “de jure exile”), then there is no point going into your other errors.
Have anice day.
Yaser Hamdi was held at Camp X-Ray when he was a U.S. citizen, although once it became known he was a citizen he was transferred to a military prison in the U.S. He also renounced his citizenship as a condition of his release in 2004.