My wife and I have traveled to quite a few countries with our passports with no problems. However on a recent tour group trip with a travel company to Mexico, with 43 others, we had a difficulty getting into the country.

When my wife’s passport was scanned, some kind of flag came up on the computer which caused quite a stir. They could not speak English and we could not speak Spanish. They told my wife, through the Spanish-speaking tour director, to stand aside. We tried to find out what the problem was, but they would not say. Finally they asked for more identification, and my wife produced her picture driver’s license. This didn’t satisfy them and they produced a form to fill out. The tour director filled out most of it, so I don’t know what all the questions were; however, one asked why she was going to Mexico. The tour director said to put on our best smiles and hope for the best.

Finally, after making us wait until everyone else was processed, they stamped the passport and allowed us through. I did see that they had made photo copies of all our documents. They never would tell us what the problem was.

One of our fellow travelers, who worked as a bank loan officer, said that my wife’s name might have shown up as one who was undesirable for some reason or another. I suppose that sounds like a reason, although her name is pretty unusual. But what if John Jones or Mary Smith was a criminal, does that mean that every John Jones or Mary Smith is going to be stopped?? This sounds like a pretty lame reason, considering the thousands or more same-name individuals.

Can anyone shed some light on this??