Marie's Immigration Update

Yesterday Marie-Pierre told me she sent my blog address to Anna in England (Hi, Anna!), which made me self-conscious enough to proof-read everything I had written. While doing so, I realized that I implicitly promised an update on how things went when we crossed the border for Nicole's wedding, but I've failed to deliver on that promise.

So, here it is....

When we went to Cincinnati for the wedding, we arrived at the airport with plenty of time (as MP and I are notorious for doing), which turned out to be fortunate. We went through US Customs and Immigration at the Montreal airport and - as expected - Marie was given the 3rd degree about why she still had her Green Card. So, we explained the situation - again - to US Immigration. When we explained that she tried to give up her Green Card at the US Consulate, he basically said "Yeah, they do that sometimes" and suddenly became very helpful. So I asked what we needed to do to make it so we didn't have trouble at the boarder every time we crossed and he indicated that we needed to go wait in the Immigration office (there was no line, by the way) and fill out a form.

So we waited for about ten minutes (did I mention there was no line?) and finally a guy comes out and tells us that they're having trouble finding the form and that they'll be with us soon. After a little while the guy calls us up and asks Marie to fill out the form. On one section she needs to describe why she is no longer intending to live in the United States. So, she and I both assume that they need a very brief description like "Moved back to Canada" or something similar.

No.

They want just about every detail! So she adds "Bought a condo and husband and I have jobs" (or something like that). The guy still wasn't happy with that! We started joking with each other that this sounds like a break-up letter: "It's not me, it's you. We can still be friends. I think you love me more than I love you". For Pete's sake!

So, in the end, she finally gave up her Green Card (which had been expired for a couple years anyway) and is officially "just" a Canadian Citizen.