Traveling to US for a few days

Can someone help me please.  My son just landed as PR in Canada on Dec. 20, 2014.  He has not received his PR card in the mail yet. He is a US citizen with a valid US passport.  He is planing to travel to the US via commercial flight next week for 4 or 5 days only.  Will there a problem coming back to Canada without his PR card?  Is his Confirmation of landing paper sufficient enough as proof that he is a landed immigrant?

Thank you dpenabill

Hi

lostmermaid wrote: I have another question. I am a canadian citizen and my son was born in the US so he is a US citizen.  Whenever we cross the land border together, I would be often asked by a US officer why my son is a US citizen.  I always reply, "I was visiting the US and I gave birth there 21 years ago.  Due to unexpected health issues, I had to deliver my baby in the US,"  Bottom line is my son is a US citizen. Do they the right to ask my son's citizenship every time he crosses the US land border from Canada?  He is entering his country of birth for crying out loud.  I would feel offend if a canadian border officer asks me why am I a canadian citizen every time I cross from the US back to Canada by land!!!!

1. Yes, USINS/Homeland Security has the right ask what is the citizenship of your son.

There is very little restraint on what POE officers can ask travelers seeking entry into the country, be that the U.S. or Canada, and it does not depend on the nationality or citizenship of the individual seeking entry. While he is a U.S. citizen, when he is at the U.S. border he is a person seeking to entry the U.S. from a foreign country.

The scope of the border officer's discretion is very, very broad. Protecting national security is the mantra.

There is little comparison, however, in the demeanor or style in which the respective POE officers engage travelers on the different sides of the border. I am a Canadian citizen now, but for many years before I became a Canadian PR even, and even when my border-straddling lifestyle made my status for entering Canada somewhat problematic, it was overwhelmingly the U.S. border officers who were unfriendly and oft times aggressive, engaging in more of an interrogation than an interview, whereas the Canadian POE officers were consistently friendly, polite, accommodating, and in effect apologizing for having to ask me questions even though it was me, and my frequent long stays in Canada, which were causing the need for such questions.

On one occasion I had a large, gruff, U.S. border guard literally shouting into my face, inches from my face, and even though I had shown the same U.S. passport many times, the photo was clearly of me, and I had been extremely polite and responsive to all their questions (I had many decades of experience crossing international borders, and long ago learned that the fastest way through was to just answer questions, be polite, remain calm). For some reason on that occasion they decided to challenge my identity and literally held me for . . . well probably no more than a couple hours but it seemed like half the day . . . they went through all my belongings, asked me about details in the photographs I had with me . . . and in the end they uttered this very weak apology with the explanation they have to protect the border.

While it seems to have gotten less confrontational for me when I go to the States these days, I still get a number of "why" questions, like "why" am I living in Canada (I always display my U.S. passport when entering the U.S. . . . which is the technical requirement for a U.S. citizen regardless of what other citizenship he or she has).