Warning: I'm hoping to make several blog posts today to document our trip. Feel free to skip them and come back another time when the blog is feeling neglected and there's nothing else to read.
I should have started out with this post-- it's a rather long story, and some of you have heard it, but the bottom line was that we were glad to be home.
Let's go back a few months. In preparation for the trip, I double-checked both mine and Hyrum's U.S. passports. Both current. Check. Names matched those on our tickets. Check. All set. Now fast forward to Wednesday night, less than 48 hours before we were supposed to leave. We were checking online whether we needed a yellow fever vaccination to get into one of the national parks we wanted to visit. In clicking a few links, we ended up at a page that said, "If you're a Colombian citizen, you will need a Colombian Passport to enter and exit the country. Even if you were just born there and never lived there, you'll still be treated as a citizen." say what???
[Hyrum used to have a Colombian passport, but when he commissioned with the Army through ROTC, they shredded it. We didn't think much about it.]
We started to panic, and started google-ing it, to see if that was correct. Yep, every single website said the same thing, including an official website from the Colombian Embassy. By this time, it was 11:30 at night and the only thing we could think to do was to call other Colombians we knew who were US citizens who had traveled to Colombia. We only found 1, his sister, and she didn't remember. (Helpful!)
After getting very little sleep that night, Hyrum spent all day Thursday calling the consulates in the US trying to find out what the deal was. We were trying to figure out if he could get another Colombian passport, or if he needed to officially renounce his citizenship, and if he'd need to drive to the closest consulate (Chicago...). He talked to a lot of people, and heard many different things, but eventually he had a few people confirm that because he's commissioned with the Army to be an officer, he can't hold a Colombian passport or have dual citizenship. He renounced all other citizenships, in the eyes of the US, which apparently translates to renouncing it to the world. So although he was not a Colombian citizen any longer, he hadn't gone through the process with the Colombian government. He was told that they'd let him in the country, and while he was there he'd need to do the paperwork with the government.
Great! So we went. They hassled him a bit at the airport getting in, but we made it. While there, he called the department of security and explained his situation and what he'd been told by the consulates in the US. They said the paperwork took 3 to 4 months and there's no way he'd be able to complete it there; it would have to happen when he got back to the US. Hyrum asked whether he'd have problems getting out, and they said no, he'd just have to explain the situation.
Two weeks later we found ourselves at customs, at midnight. I went through one window--no problem. I was standing near Hyrum, waiting for him to come through, when a security guard told me I had to leave the room. That annoyed me. Through the window, I saw Hyrum talking, and a guy shaking his head at him. Over and over. Then Hyrum started shaking his head at me. After 15 minutes I couldn't take it anymore, so I went back to the security guy and said, "Look, my husband is over there, and they're not letting him through, and I need to know whether he's making the flight or not and what to do about it." His response? "What they're talking about has nothing to do with you, and there's nothing you can do about it, so just stay where you are." At that point I didn't know whether to yell at him or cry. It ended up being more along the lines of yelling. (After all, I am Dad's child...) Meanwhile, I was watching a few other guys come out and talk to Hyrum. The frustrating thing was that if they fully understood the situation, Hyrum was right, but people only understand what they want to hear. So they were telling him that "those laws are US laws, not Colombian laws... you need to stay here and get a Colombian passport to leave the country." Eventually, the supervisor of the supervisor told him they'd let him through this one time, but it would be the last time they let him out as a Colombian citizen.
Now back in the US he's working on the paperwork to get his citizenship renounced officially, and he'll have to take a trip to Chicago to finalize it. I'll be happy to put this all behind me!!
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment