Edward Alden and Laurie Trautman
In 1983, Donna Ann Baker, a Canadian, married John McCall, an American, in Madoc, Ontario, a rural town halfway between Toronto and Ottawa. The McCalls set up their lives in Chicago, where both their children were born and would take their father’s U.S. citizenship. The family later moved back to Ontario, where Donna worked for decades as an ICU nurse. She would regularly drive to visit their adult children who had settled on the U.S. side of the border.
In February 2020, just before Canada instituted strict border controls in an attempt to halt the spread of COVID-19, Donna was diagnosed with liver failure. She was put on the transplant list, but as her condition worsened, her family pleaded with the Canadian government for a compassionate exemption that would allow her children, Ian and Meghan, to enter from the United States to help with her care. Both children had birth certificates showing their right to enter Canada based on their mother’s Canadian citizenship, but their passports were American. They were told their best hope was to file for Canadian citizenship, but they would not be allowed to cross the border until the applications were approved.
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