Crossing the Border

[CdnKayDee]

Hi,

It will be me, my husband and our child. We all have same last name. Is all we need to cross the border our passports? No need for birth certificates correct? We are making 3 trips to the States. One driving and two flying.

Thanks.

 

[lisalonglash]

Hi,

It will be me, my husband and our child. We all have same last name. Is all we need to cross the border our passports? No need for birth certificates correct? We are making 3 trips to the States. One driving and two flying.

Thanks.

Correct, just your passports are necessary. Here's the link to the what documents you need to pass into/out of the USA:

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/whti-ivho/menu-eng.html

 

[Alderbrook]

We cross all the time with our passports. My last name on my passport is different from my husbands & sons & they've never questioned it. I can't be bothered to go stand in line at the passport office & pay to have it changed into my married name & we've been married 7 years. I always wonder if they're going to question whether my son is mine, but they've never said a thing. I always carry my marriage licence with me though just in case.

 

[Mr. & Mrs. Smith]

We cross all the time with our passports. My last name on my passport is different from my husbands & sons & they've never questioned it. I can't be bothered to go stand in line at the passport office & pay to have it changed into my married name & we've been married 7 years. I always wonder if they're going to question whether my son is mine, but they've never said a thing. I always carry my marriage licence with me though just in case.

You just gave me a great idea! I didn't change mine either when we got married. I just continued to book flights in my maiden name to match my passport. However, I just had a baby and thought that I better since my married name is on his bc. But, you got me thinking that instead of paying the big bucks for me to get a new passport, I could just get him one for $20-some. That is, of course, unless the parents' names show up on the child's passport? Do they?

PS - For anyone who is concerned, I do know that technially I am supposed to have all ID in my married name. I'm just choosing to break the rules.

 

[snickerboo]

I just applied for our pp and I wondered about the same thing w/ the kids as I use my maiden name but I'm 99% sure it said on the app info that our names don't appear in the pp. However, I'll bet fi the border guard types in your pp number it comes up the names of the parents.

Oh yeah, OP your ?, no BCs required w/ PP. It is the 'ultimate' in Identification because of all the screening, extra ID required and gov't approved photo.

 

[Mr. & Mrs. Smith]

Hmmm....I wonder if it would be a problem. Well, I can get DS a passport and take a trip across the border to test it out. (We live right on the border.) If it doesn't work, I'll pay for a new passport.

 

[Alderbrook]

My cousin is the president of the union for the border guards. I asked him what happens when you cross over. When you cross the border they scan your passport for warrants, etc. Nothing comes up about children. My cousin said if you have supporting ID you will not run into a problem usually unless you get an idiot guard crossing into the US. I questioned all the single ladies out there that are divorced, went back to their maiden names but have kids with their husband's last name. He was kind of stumped. There are a lot of different scenerios out there as to why the mother wouldn't have the same last name as her children. It must happen all the time. Divorced & remarried, never got married but live commonlaw, death, etc.

I have 4 friends with kids now that are married & have no intention of taking their husbands name. You do not have to take your husband's name, it's totally optional. My GF has been married 30 years, has 3 grown children now, & has never changed any of her ID. They travel abroad constantly & always have & she said she's never run into a problem.

I go by my husbands last name now just for the sake of my son, but I honestly don't care to assume his name on my ID (you never legally change your name when you get married, you just assume the name, if it were legal, you would have to pay for it & it's a pain in the butt, my cousin tried it.)

So just because your ID/passport has different info than your child's I wouldn't sweat it. My flight is always under a different name than my son's, my health insurance, everything. No one has ever said a word to me.

 

[segujea]

My girlfriend and I have an 11 year old daughter and we crossed the border with her (plane and automobile) many times and we never had any problem. Of course since we are not married, we do not have the same last name.

btw, it is largely the norm in Quebec for the wife in a married couple to keep her maiden name. The US custom must be used to seeing kids that do not have the same last name as their mother.

 

[Mr. & Mrs. Smith]

(you never legally change your name when you get married, you just assume the name, if it were legal, you would have to pay for it & it's a pain in the butt, my cousin tried it.)

Maybe it varies from place to place but I live in NB and was married in NS and I definitely legally changed my name when I was married. However, in the case of marriage either a man or woman can change their last name free of charge. It simply involves showing your marriage certificate in person. Once they change your provincial ID, you can then use that ID to change your federal ID. Also, if you don't change your documents but then used your married name when filing income tax, it is legally changed. I just married a couple this past weekend and got all the info for them.

 

[Alderbrook]

You are not legally changing your name, you are assuming his name (I worked in family law for a while). Just showing your marriage certificate is not changing your name legally.

Did you change the birth certificate too? If so, that's a legal name change.

Here is a link to getting married in NB - check page 9, you assume names there too.

http://www.snb.ca/e/1000/1000-01/pdf/SNB-GettingMarried_E.pdf

 

[calgarygary]

We cross all the time with our passports. My last name on my passport is different from my husbands & sons & they've never questioned it. I can't be bothered to go stand in line at the passport office & pay to have it changed into my married name & we've been married 7 years. I always wonder if they're going to question whether my son is mine, but they've never said a thing. I always carry my marriage licence with me though just in case.

Not going to go into the whole whose name should I take debate. Just wondering why you said you would have to pay to change the passport. You have been married 7 years and passports are valid for 5.

 

[snickerboo]

I also wanted to note, after just having done my PP, you can always have your PP in your maiden name as, as Alderbrook pointed out, unless you do a legal name change (where it's changed everywhere including your birth certificate, not just the showing your marriage cert route), your maiden name is always your name.

I never changed mine. My kids have always had different names and we crossed several times before the PP requirement with just BCs and no dh and I was never even asked for a letter.

You can get a border guard (I find especially at the US side) who wants to assert authority, though. I took dd to So You Think You Can Dance last year in Detroit and the guard gave me a hard time about the show. "How did you hear about it?" etc. Ummm, it's on TV! LOL I didn't say that but he had a laundry list of questions about how we knew about the tour, why we were seeing it in Detroit, how long it would be, why we were staying over, etc. Meanwhile, I'm crossing with a child with a different last name and no PP and he could have cared less about that. You never can tell with a border guard.

 

[Alderbrook]

Not going to go into the whole whose name should I take debate. Just wondering why you said you would have to pay to change the passport. You have been married 7 years and passports are valid for 5.

My passport expired 2 years ago. Because I had a previous passport, I had the option of mailing it away & getting a new one mailed back to me, as long as it was in the same name as the previous passport was. My previous passport was in my maiden name. So it was easier for me to fill out the forms & mail back my old passport to get a new one than go & stand in line for a new passport in my married name. If I wanted to put it in my married name I would have had to go down to the passport office & show them my marriage certificate. If I want to change it now, it would cost me $12 to have it changed, parking for the passport office, my time, a babysitter (no way I'm taking a 3 year old to stand in line ) & inconvenience. We are in the country, it's not an easy trip for me.

Not trying to debate the name thing. It's just that when you get married you are always legally whatever your birth certificate says. A legal name change requires a lot of work. If you decide you don't want to go by your married name anymore you just have to tell all the ID that you are changing back.

Not trying to start a fight, just a bit of info As far as I know it's that way all across Canada. I used to work as a legal assistant & we were taught in school that all the info we learned there was relevant for all across Canada if we decided to go work in a different province.