My Urgent Passport pick-up experience: Walk-in to walk-out with Passport in 3 hours.

[harirajmohan]

Because certificate is not a photo ID. They need to see your face on an id. Can be a US drivers license if thats what you have.

But you would have had/shown your home country passport along with the citizenship certificate correct?

 

[Mexontario]

But you would have had/shown your home country passport along with the citizenship certificate correct?

Nope, My DL. but I'd think that valid passport is still sufficient.

 

[yv14]

Finally, we have collected our passports yesterday from Windsor...
I tried to obtain oath certificates immediately after oath. However, they were delayed and so I left to the US (where I was working) after oath. Friend of mine collected certificates and FedEx'd me. So I decided to travel and apply for passport in Windsor. Although ambitious, I bought the round trip ticket on the same day from Detroit.

Called Passport Canada on Monday to see if I can obtain an urgent appointment. They told that they are not doing appointments for urgent requests, instead I should walk right in within 48 hours of travel. I took the early morning flight and that is supposed to land in Detroit by 930AM (Thanks to the loss in 1hr time diff.). That flight was delayed by an hr and rental car delayed another 30 min. At this point, I was almost certain I have to spend the night in Windsor. Filled ArriveCan details using Birth certificate as entry document (There is no option for citizenship certificate). Finally showed up at the windsor tunnel border at around 1130 AM. CBSA officer was very understandable and looked up my certificate along with DL. Dont try to show up with just certificate as it does not have your photo and signature. Left the border and drove straight to my guarantor and obtained signatures where needed.

Went to the passport canada office in downtown at around 1220. Security guard asked me if I have an appointment. I said no and showed the boarding pass for return flight ticket. He was first surprised that the travel is the same day and let me in after a few covid questions. Went to the reception and showed proof of travel along with both our applications. She said, its very tight but they would try to accommodate. She arranged the application and documents in order and gave a token to be seated. There is only 1 person ahead of us. Guard told that this is slowest its been in the past 2-3 months. Probably we were very lucky.
After about 10 min, our token number was called and we handed our application and proof of travel to the passport officer at the counter. She said we will shoot for today but as always its not a 100% guaranteed. Just make sure all your references and guarantor can answer our calls. I paid the fee and left the counter at about 1PM with 330 PM pickup time. I informed all my references and guarantor about the same. Guarantor received the call at around 2. shortly after, references received the call and there were a few discrepancies with addresses from reference accounts and so Passport office called me again to make sure I didnt miss any previous addresses.

Went in at 330 PM, This time there were quite a few ppl (around 15-20 waiting). Showed up at the reception with pickup receipts and there they are...waiting for our signatures to become alive. Passport have to signed in front of them to be valid. With the new passport, I was able to catch my return flight in Detroit. We completed our memorable Canadian journey with an adventurous closing!

Hi. What office did you go?. Thanks

 

[svk1520]

Finally, we have collected our passports yesterday from Windsor...
I tried to obtain oath certificates immediately after oath. However, they were delayed and so I left to the US (where I was working) after oath. Friend of mine collected certificates and FedEx'd me. So I decided to travel and apply for passport in Windsor. Although ambitious, I bought the round trip ticket on the same day from Detroit.

Called Passport Canada on Monday to see if I can obtain an urgent appointment. They told that they are not doing appointments for urgent requests, instead I should walk right in within 48 hours of travel. I took the early morning flight and that is supposed to land in Detroit by 930AM (Thanks to the loss in 1hr time diff.). That flight was delayed by an hr and rental car delayed another 30 min. At this point, I was almost certain I have to spend the night in Windsor. Filled ArriveCan details using Birth certificate as entry document (There is no option for citizenship certificate). Finally showed up at the windsor tunnel border at around 1130 AM. CBSA officer was very understandable and looked up my certificate along with DL. Dont try to show up with just certificate as it does not have your photo and signature. Left the border and drove straight to my guarantor and obtained signatures where needed.

Went to the passport canada office in downtown at around 1220. Security guard asked me if I have an appointment. I said no and showed the boarding pass for return flight ticket. He was first surprised that the travel is the same day and let me in after a few covid questions. Went to the reception and showed proof of travel along with both our applications. She said, its very tight but they would try to accommodate. She arranged the application and documents in order and gave a token to be seated. There is only 1 person ahead of us. Guard told that this is slowest its been in the past 2-3 months. Probably we were very lucky.
After about 10 min, our token number was called and we handed our application and proof of travel to the passport officer at the counter. She said we will shoot for today but as always its not a 100% guaranteed. Just make sure all your references and guarantor can answer our calls. I paid the fee and left the counter at about 1PM with 330 PM pickup time. I informed all my references and guarantor about the same. Guarantor received the call at around 2. shortly after, references received the call and there were a few discrepancies with addresses from reference accounts and so Passport office called me again to make sure I didnt miss any previous addresses.

Went in at 330 PM, This time there were quite a few ppl (around 15-20 waiting). Showed up at the reception with pickup receipts and there they are...waiting for our signatures to become alive. Passport have to signed in front of them to be valid. With the new passport, I was able to catch my return flight in Detroit. We completed our memorable Canadian journey with an adventurous closing!

Hi @Mexontario thank you for your sharing your experience. I have just 2 qns - did u carry your birth certificate ? And was your return flight from Canada to US or was a domestic US flight from Detroit to some other US city? Did they not ask about leaving Canada flight ticket?

 

[Mexontario]

Hi @Mexontario thank you for your sharing your experience. I have just 2 qns - did u carry your birth certificate ? And was your return flight from Canada to US or was a domestic US flight from Detroit to some other US city? Did they not ask about leaving Canada flight ticket?

I entered with Driving license and citizenship certificate. My flight was a US domestic flight in and out of Detroit. They looked at the domestic flights ticket.

 

[Hot2Cold]

Hi. What office did you go?. Thanks

It's literally mentioned in the first line of the post.

 

[bimmerm3m5]

That is no big news. You can enter with a certificate while crossing via land borders on personal vehicles/rental cars, not on a commercial carrier like a plane, bus etc. I confirmed this with CBSA before attempting.



I'm not a US citizen.

@Mexontario, really appreciate this thread. I haven't done the OATH yet, but it will be within 2 weeks of a US trip, and curious if you can provide any evidence around the land border difference...I can't find much on this site. I'm trying to understand if I really need to go for urgent passport pickup, or can I just live without it and use my US passport to return to Canada (by car).

I wouldn't want to risk losing NEXUS by using that as citizenship proof, while not (yet) having it reflect my new dual-citizenship. The NEXUS site does say that only one citizenship is linked to the card at one time, so perhaps this is a non issue, but it does caution evidence of the second citizenship may be requested.

 

[harirajmohan]

@Mexontario, really appreciate this thread. I haven't done the OATH yet, but it will be within 2 weeks of a US trip, and curious if you can provide any evidence around the land border difference...I can't find much on this site. I'm trying to understand if I really need to go for urgent passport pickup, or can I just live without it and use my US passport to return to Canada (by car).

I wouldn't want to risk losing NEXUS by using that as citizenship proof, while not (yet) having it reflect my new dual-citizenship. The NEXUS site does say that only one citizenship is linked to the card at one time, so perhaps this is a non issue, but it does caution evidence of the second citizenship may be requested.

Updating citizenship cannot make you loose nexus membership.
Nexus lane doesnt guarantee on the scrutiny cbp/cbsa as anyone in any lane is subject to secondary inspection.

Whatever the data is updated/not updated in nexus, its not the final documents you would trust and avoid carrying your other documents. Both border can ask you proof of citizenship(respective passport/citizenship certificate /birth certificate etc).

https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/documents/dual-citizenship
If you are an American-Canadian dual citizen with a valid U.S. passport, you don’t need a Canadian passport to fly to Canada. However, you still need to carry proper identification and meet the basic requirements to enter Canada.

Seems you dont need to spend money on another passport but i think that you would be asked to prove Canadian citizenship every time(whenever you dont use Canadian passport).

 

[bimmerm3m5]

https://travel.gc.ca/travelling/documents/dual-citizenship
If you are an American-Canadian dual citizen with a valid U.S. passport, you don’t need a Canadian passport to fly to Canada. However, you still need to carry proper identification and meet the basic requirements to enter Canada.

Seems you dont need to spend money on another passport but i think that you would be asked to prove Canadian citizenship every time(whenever you dont use Canadian passport).

Yeah, I think you are generally correct - a passport isn't needed as a dual citizen of US + CA, but it would certainly be less troublesome to have it.

 

[Mexontario]

@Mexontario, really appreciate this thread. I haven't done the OATH yet, but it will be within 2 weeks of a US trip, and curious if you can provide any evidence around the land border difference...I can't find much on this site. I'm trying to understand if I really need to go for urgent passport pickup, or can I just live without it and use my US passport to return to Canada (by car).

I wouldn't want to risk losing NEXUS by using that as citizenship proof, while not (yet) having it reflect my new dual-citizenship. The NEXUS site does say that only one citizenship is linked to the card at one time, so perhaps this is a non issue, but it does caution evidence of the second citizenship may be requested.

If you are entering Canada by land via personal/rental vehicle, you can use citizenship certificate along with an additional picture ID to prove that you are the same person claiming to be, in the certificate. dont use Nexus card as your entry will be recorded based off of that NEXUS card which is not up to date to reflect your new citizenship status. Cannot confirm this, but you may be at risk of losing nexus travel privileges if you do so.

 

[bimmerm3m5]

If you are entering Canada by land via personal/rental vehicle, you can use citizenship certificate along with an additional picture ID to prove that you are the same person claiming to be, in the certificate. dont use Nexus card as your entry will be recorded based off of that NEXUS card which is not up to date to reflect your new citizenship status. Cannot confirm this, but you may be at risk of losing nexus travel privileges if you do so.

Yeah, I don't think NEXUS helps at all here, because it reflects my US citizenship, and I'm not going to change it from that as the primary-identified citizenship.