I have dual citizenship (Brazil and US) and recently entered the US, coming back from a trip to Europe.
I was with my 9yo son, my fiancé (not my son’s mother) and her 9yo nephew. All three of us have US passports.
We crossed the border into the US through Philly, and at no time we were asked for travel authorization for the kids, which was a big surprise to me.
My fiancé and her mother have crossed the US border multiple times with her nephew/grandson and were never asked for travel authorization.
Unless I’m missing something, this sounds like an enabler to human-trafficking. On this day and age, why would the border agents not ask for travel authorizations?
Although I had a notarized authorization from the Mom, I don’t think I should be able to cross a border without being properly checked.
The same happened when entering Portugal.
My mind was blown.
How come we were not checked for traveling with the kids?
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Travel authorization for children coming to the US is more of an issue for international travellers coming to the US than US passport holders. The child after all has every right to return to their home country.
In Europe, given the Schengen travel area, many countries don’t share the US’ paranoid culture of checks at the border and the passport is sufficient. So what if the parents don’t agree on whether the child can leave the country? One parent could easily take the child and cross the borders from Portugal all the way to Denmark without seeing a single border check.
>On this day and age, why would the border agents not ask for travel authorizations?
Without any other reason to suspect something illegal was going on, they really had no right to stop you. As US citizens you have the unrestricted right to enter the country, and in the US everyone is presumed innocent unless there is probable cause to suspect otherwise
EDIT: If your nephew had been reported kidnapped, it would’ve popped when they ran the passport, so it’s also not like there was *no* protection or checks in place
When you apply for a kid’s passport you can specify if they’re allowed to travel with one or both parents (in Canada anyway). So there’d be a flag on it if documentation was required. I suspect the US has a similar method of flagging cases that are unusual.
To clarify were your passports not checked at all? I’m an American and to my knowledge every time you re-enter the country you have to wait in line at the airport to be processed back in.
I can’t think of anything you did that would be suspicious. Why would they need to do an extra check?
Because why would they? It’d be a stupendous hassle to verify every single child entering the country, and so many people would be caught out forgetting birth certificates etc, plus families with a distant or grumpily separated parent wouldn’t be able to travel. As you allude to, this isn’t widely done in European countries either.
Question: weren’t your passports checked at any time during this travel? I don’t get your question.
When I have traveled internationally as a kid, as an adult in the company of kids etc. the passport is the only travel document we’ve had. Why would that not be enough?
– Countries share data for these purposes, if the child had been abducted it would show up in the computer when they run the passport.
– Thousands of children enter the country without one of their parents everyday, it would be logistically impossible to verify each; so CBP will just inquire if they see something suspicious.
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