Why do I need to enter my US Permanent Resident card when flying from US to Mexico with AA?

Upvote:0

If I change my country of residence to Canada, then I don't need to enter my US Green Card or address in the United States, however this is not truthful.

For future reference, I'd say changing your residency to "Canada" is completely fine and has a ~0% chance of landing you in any sort of trouble. Airlines couldn't care less what you put down in that field as a Canadian citizen flying to Mexico and in the very worst case scenario you can just sort things out at the airport. As outlined in For UK/USA bound flights, are details entered during online check-in, such as date of birth or passport number ever checked by airlines/immigration?, the only two fields that airlines truly care about are "First Name" and "Last Name", everything else can be sorted out at the airport if necessary.

Upvote:4

One possibility could be that you have a citizenship which does not allow visa-free entry into Mexico. Holders of US visas or green cards are allowed visa-free entry into Mexico, so if you provide the correct info they don’t need to ask for a visa for Mexico.

Not sure the US address is really relevant, but it’s possible they just hardcoded “use same fields and checks as for the US” as a shortcut and they ended up with this even though not required.

Upvote:5

Airlines need to report your exit from the US to the CBP. They use the information you're providing to make that report. Since there's no exit immigration controls in the US, this report is the way for the CBP to track exits from the country.

To clarify in response to comments: for LPRs the information needed is your green card details since that's how you're recorded when entering the country and the CBP wants matching entry and exit records. You may have been able to fly with a different travel document before, probably by either providing a different answer or with an airline (possibly even the same) that didn't collect that information at that time during booking or online check in. The information would then be collected at check-in at the airport, and at that time you may have shown the passport with which you intend to enter your destination and no-one asked about what you used to enter the US. But now - that's what they're asking.

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