She crossed the border at an unapproved and unmanned border area.
She crossed the border with out a pass port.
She is not a citizen of either the country she exited or the country she entered.
Her mother brought her her pass port but the border guards can not take that document at face value because it was not in her possession initially.
What the border patrol would have to do is kick the issue up to the state department to have the pass port verified by the country of which she claims citizenship, France.
They also have to assume she intended to cross the border illegally. They will have to search the terrorist watch list data base to see if she is suspected of terrorist ties.
To me it is not surprising that it took two weeks.
If she didn’t want to carry her pass port jogging she should have carried a photo copy of it folded in her pocket.
Whenever the wife and I travel we always have a couple of copies of our pass ports in our luggage.
Losing your pass port or having it stolen in a foreign country is very serious and will inconvenience you severely. Having a copy of it will smooth thing out considerably.
that is a little surprising, no matter who is holding it I would think it is an official govt document.