---
title: "At the Point Roberts Crossing, a Question About Voting and Six Hours in a Room"
description: "A Canadian who has lived in Washington for 14 years now faces removal over a ballot she says she never cast"
author: "Inez Holloway"
published: 2026-09-26T12:00:00Z
modified: 2026-09-26T22:02:31Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/at-the-point-roberts-crossing-a-question-about-voting-and-si-6b44bc
language: en
tags: ["immigration", "politics", "voting", "bureaucracy", "trump", "us", "latam"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# At the Point Roberts Crossing, a Question About Voting and Six Hours in a Room

*A Canadian who has lived in Washington for 14 years now faces removal over a ballot she says she never cast*

By Inez Holloway · September 26, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/at-the-point-roberts-crossing-a-question-about-voting-and-si-6b44bc

## In brief

- Paige Adamson, 61, a Canadian and U.S. permanent resident, was questioned for nearly six hours at Point Roberts on Sept. 15
- DHS alleges she falsely claimed citizenship to register in Whatcom County and voted in Washington’s 2018 general election
- Adamson says she never voted federally, doesn’t recall voting in a state election, but may have been registered; she faces a Seattle hearing
- Lawyer Len Saunders says three similar detentions came in 10 days and warns hundreds of Canadians could be affected
- CBP says possible unlawful voter registration triggers “rigorous examination” and can lead to formal removal proceedings

The border crossing at Point Roberts is not much of a border. It is where a Canadian drives home from a birthday dinner in Tsawwassen, B.C., to the American exclave where she lives, a pocket of the United States hanging off the bottom of the Vancouver suburbs. Paige Adamson had made the crossing for 14 years. She is a Canadian citizen and a U.S. permanent resident, 61 years old. On Sept. 15 she made it again, and this time, she told CBC News, the officer’s first question was new.

> The very first thing she asked was, ‘Have you ever voted in a federal U.S. election?’

Adamson said she had not. “They immediately said, ‘Park over here and come into the office.”’ What followed, according to her account, was a process of nearly six hours: secondary inspection beginning just after 9 p.m., interrogation until past 2 a.m., documents signed, admission to the United States. One of those documents, reviewed by CBC News, states that Adamson “must surrender for removal from the United States, if so ordered.”

The paperwork says why. Department of Homeland Security documents provided by Adamson allege that she falsely claimed U.S. citizenship “for the purposes of registering to vote in Whatcom County, Washington state,” and that she voted in Washington’s 2018 general election. DHS cites those allegations as grounds for removing her from the country. In a transcript of her questioning reviewed by CBC News, Adamson maintained she has never voted in a federal election and does not remember voting in a state one — though she acknowledged receiving a ballot, and that she may have been registered.

May have been registered. It is the kind of phrase that now ends a life arranged over a decade and a half. Washington automatically registers some eligible voters when they obtain or renew a driver’s licence or state ID, and the state says the system is tied to proof of citizenship. But internal Washington Department of Licensing emails, obtained by the non-profit Federation for American Immigration Reform through a Freedom of Information request, show instances in which non-citizens were registered anyway. Adamson is scheduled for a hearing in Seattle. “My anxiety is over the top,” she said.

She is not alone in the room. Len Saunders, an immigration lawyer based in Blaine, Wash., told CBC News he has fielded calls from three people detained at the border and questioned about voting in the past week and a half — Adamson among them, and another a Blaine resident who crosses daily to work as a nurse in B.C. Three near-identical cases in ten days, Saunders said, is unprecedented in a career of more than 25 years. He believes hundreds of Canadians could face the same problem, and expects more when holiday travel begins. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.

The machinery underneath this is not secret. The Supreme Court this year let states resume using an expanded Homeland Security database to hunt noncitizen voters — a tool that [has mistaken citizens for aliens](https://rews.cc/a/america-s-supreme-court-revives-a-federal-tool-for-hunting-n-a5f6e4). Chris Anders, a B.C. immigration lawyer, told CBC News that border enforcement is “way, way stricter and tougher” than at any point in two decades, and that the databases officers draw on are constantly expanding: what did not flag a traveller last year can flag her now.

Saunders said he used to have a fix for this. Clients who discovered they had been registered — “Well, I thought I was entitled to \[vote\] because I went in, got my driver’s licence and they registered me to vote,” he hears from Canadians — were told to deregister immediately and file a declaration that they “unknowingly registered or unknowingly voted.” It worked, consistently. “Now, it seems to be a completely different scenario during this current administration.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, in an emailed statement to CBC News, explained the new scenario in its own vocabulary. When a permanent resident arrives at a port of entry, a spokesperson said, officers screen documentation against federal and state databases. If those records indicate “potential unlawful voter registration, illegal voting, or a previous false claim to U.S. citizenship,” the traveller is subject to “rigorous examination and detailed questioning.” Depending on the case, the statement said, an individual may face “prolonged” immigration inspections, a notice to appear, and formal removal proceedings.

Prolonged. Adamson’s version of the word is more specific. She said she was offered no water until roughly the five-hour mark of her detention, and that no one asked whether she needed the bathroom. “I was basically treated like a criminal,” she said.

Point Roberts has a large Canadian population, people who cross as routinely as she did. She worries about her neighbours now. She put it in the idiom of a place she may soon have to leave: “This beautiful little place, it’s kind of being invaded.”