Had issues returning back from France on AP

[The French Maid]

So my husband and I had different flights back to Houston from Paris. We did however have the same flight leaving from Houston to Portland. He was delayed in immigration because the machine wasn't reading his passport. They said he would need to get a new passport even though he had his AP in hand. At one point they threatened to send him back to France At this point I was on the plane waiting for him and he was sending me text messages. I was FURIOUS and was ready to deboard the plane and some how get back to immigration to give them a piece of my mind.

They finally let him go and said he should get a new passport even though the one he has isn't expired WTF? How in the world were we supposed to know that?

Can someone shed some light on this? Was it the machine? Was it a-hole immigration officers trying to give him a bad time? Is his passport somehow canceled because he was here on an H1B visa but it was cancelled through his old company before we got married? Im super confused.

He was mad because we have paid all the fees and have done everything right and we are still hassled.

 

[maggyban]

So my husband and I had different flights back to Houston from Paris. We did however have the same flight leaving from Houston to Portland. He was delayed in immigration because the machine wasn't reading his passport. They said he would need to get a new passport even though he had his AP in hand. At one point they threatened to send him back to France At this point I was on the plane waiting for him and he was sending me text messages. I was FURIOUS and was ready to deboard the plane and some how get back to immigration to give them a piece of my mind.

They finally let him go and said he should get a new passport even though the one he has isn't expired WTF? How in the world were we supposed to know that?

Can someone shed some light on this? Was it the machine? Was it a-hole immigration officers trying to give him a bad time? Is his passport somehow canceled because he was here on an H1B visa but it was cancelled through his old company before we got married? Im super confused.

He was mad because we have paid all the fees and have done everything right and we are still hassled.

Sory about your situation. I am in no way qualified to answer most o the questions. However, I do not believe that canceling a visa would constitute cancellation of ones passport. The pasport was issued by the French Gov't and, therefore, (I believe again) the US has not right or authority to cancel one's passport. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Maybe he has an old passport or maybe it was the machine. In any case, there should be numbers on the passport that the agent could have manually typed into the computer. I have had this experience before.

I guess for safe measure he should try and contact his embassy and let them check his passport.

Hope I was able to help in some way.

 

[PraetorianXI]

I agree. in NO way cancelation of a visa equals cancelation of a passport.

But nowadays, most countries are issuing "machine readable" passport. If you do not hold one of these, then the officer has to input the passport data manually on their system... usually they just would swap and scan the visa or the GC, but since he does not have either one... I guess they chose to give him a hard time. (Maybe they don't like the french).