NH man continues fight to return to US after being stopped at Canadian border
By MIKE MOSES
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MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (WMUR) — A legal U.S. resident who lives in New Hampshire remains stranded in Canada after he was stopped at the border.
Christopher Landry, 46, of Peterborough, said the ordeal has been overwhelming, legally and emotionally.
“I’m not sure what’s going to happen, if I can even ever go home at this point,” he said.
Landry, a legal U.S. resident who is a Canadian national, said he was denied entry at the border in Maine over the weekend. He said he was held for three hours with two of his five children and turned back to Canada over old misdemeanor offenses tied to marijuana and a suspended license from 2004 and 2007.
Desperate to return home and scrambling for legal help, Landry said he never imagined that a decades-old misdemeanor would keep him from coming home.
“They move on with their lives and then they go on a trip and then they come back, and now they’re not allowed to come into the United States,” said immigration lawyer Enrique F. Mesa Jr.
Mesa, who is not connected to the case, said the U.S. government is cracking down on any past charges for legal resident green card holders. He said Landry’s best shot is to try to get the old convictions thrown out.
“I think that he’s going to have to vacate his convictions based on the fact that he did not know the immigration implications of pleading guilty, even though these charges happened so long ago,” Mesa said.
U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Maggie Hassan and U.S. Rep. Maggie Goodlander have all confirmed they’re working with Landry to get answers.
“Unfortunately, as you know, the Department of Homeland Security is ignoring a lot of the processes, including basic due process,” Hassan said.
Customs and Border Protection sent a statement to News 9 saying, in part: “Possessing a green card is a privilege, not a right.”
“The fact is that everybody that was not born in this country, regardless of our status, we feel vulnerable right now,” said Eva Castillo, of the New Hampshire Alliance for Immigrants and Refugees. “We feel worried.”
Gov. Kelly Ayotte said she is aware of the situation and called it a federal immigration issue, saying that Landry is “rightly working with our congressional delegation.”
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