Visit Canada - w green card and no passport

M

ml_boston

Banned
We have a US PR / Filipino citizen visiting us in Boston for a few weeks, and we thought of doing a quick 2-day visit to Montreal.

Problem is she brought her greencard for ID, but (not originally planning to visit Canada) she left her unexpired Filipino passport at home in Los Angeles.

I'm having trouble finding solid government website references confirming whether she can enter/return with a green card alone, or if she needs both green card & Filipino passport.

Anyone able to link me to rules definitively confirming/denying that we can visit? I'd need to confirm Canadian entry and US re-entry requirements.
 
ml_boston said:
We have a US PR / Filipino citizen visiting us in Boston for a few weeks, and we thought of doing a quick 2-day visit to Montreal.

Problem is she brought her greencard for ID, but (not originally planning to visit Canada) she left her unexpired Filipino passport at home in Los Angeles.

I'm having trouble finding solid government website references confirming whether she can enter/return with a green card alone, or if she needs both green card & Filipino passport.

Anyone able to link me to rules definitively confirming/denying that we can visit? I'd need to confirm Canadian entry and US re-entry requirements.
Click to expand...

This page at CBP https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/de...esidents/session/L3NpZC90TzdBWHM0aw==/p/0/c/0
says that LPRs do not need a passport to enter the U.S.
However, I am pretty sure that you'd need a passport to board any international flight. So presumably if you try to re-enter the U.S. by land (car or train) with just a valid green card, that should be OK.
 
LPRs with a valid green card don't need a passport to enter the US by land, sea, or air.

However, as a practical matter some airlines won't let you board an international flight without a passport. And the officer at the US airport may interrogate you about why you don't have a passport.
 
Entering the USA - whether by land or air - with only a GC is OK; however, entering Canada without a passport may be a hassle. I explicitly asked a CBSA officer if my GC would be enough, and he said that I should take the passport too. When I drove to Canada 4 times as a US LPR, Canadian border guards asked for my passport twice, which means 50% of the time. Of course, the sampling size is not big enough to see any pattern. Flying internationally with only a GC is impossible because the airline will not issue the boarding pass regardless if the flight is originating in the USA or bound for the USA.
 
http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/publications/pub/bsf5023-eng.html#a1

Scroll down to the bottom until you reach the photo of a GC and read what it says above it:

"11. U.S. Permanent Resident Card

Indicates permanent resident status in the United States. Holders do not require a passport or temporary resident visa when travelling directly from the United States to Canada."

Print it out. It's a lot of pages, but hey, it's helpful. I went to Canada twice in the last couple of months, and both times I was let in with just my GC. No questions about my passport. In 2006 I was asked for one, but I just showed them my RTD and said I didn't have a passport. Still, the CBSA's website says a passport isn't required.
 
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