Anyone from Massena NY that was born in Canada?

[Finny72]

Wife was born in Cornwall Ontario Canada, to US Citizen parents, who resided in Massena NY at the time of her birth. The Cornwall hospital was the closest, so like many other Massena residents, they went there to have their children. Unfortunately, my wife's parents never registered her birth with the US Consulate, so she never received a US Consular Report of Birth Abroad, or a Certificate of Citizenship. Now at 46 years old, she tried to get a US passport, as she "acquired" citizenship because of her US Citizen parents, however, since she does not have the certificate of citizenship, and only a Canadian Birth Certificate, her passport application was rejected. She has lived her entire life in the USA, as did her parents...she was ONLY born in Canada. Anyone else have experience figuring out how to resolve this situation so she can get a US Passport? Her parents are elderly, do not have very good memories or documents available to help her with, and we have no legal right to obtain their birth certificates of marriage certificate. Plus, NY state is the hardest it seems to get information from.

Anyone out there with experience with this, or suggestions? Forever grateful.

 

[Riley Haas]

What she likely needs to do is to prove her citizenship through her parents by demonstrating that both of her parents were citizens at the time of her birth. But if her parents won't give her copies of their birth certificates I'm not sure what she can do currently.

 

[Finny72]

She has a copy of her fathers birth certificate, as well as his US Passport. However, now the US Dept of State is asking for her parents marriage certificate, and an affidavit of their places of residence from the time of their birth until the time of her birth. This is where the problem comes in...they are elderly and have limited memory capacity...they cannot answer this request with any form of accuracy. We are doing a background investigation at this time to obtain all of their residency history to help so we can submit to the Dept of State with a notarized letter.

So, one question remains...although she feels "stateless" right now, does she in fact have dual citizenship? Can she get a Canadian Passport having been born there but never having lived there? We thought about going to the US Consulate in Ontario to present all of the information we have gathered in an effort to get her a Report of Birth Abroad, however, if she gets into Canada to do this, we fear she will not get back into the US without a Passport. We consulted an immigration attorney, but he was no help thus far!

 

[Riley Haas]

Hi again,
Ah, I see. I didn't know that they would require an affidavit about their residence but that's probably because the citizenship law has changed a few times, and residency used to be required of at least one parent.

She is indeed a dual citizen. She can apply for a Canadian citizenship certificate with her Ontario birth certificate and then, once she has that, she can get a Canadian passport. Under the older citizenship law she would not have been allowed to claim citizenship since she never lived here, but that law changed when she was very young.