When I was a junior in high school the state finals of debate were at San Diego State University. My team went down to San Diego the night before, and a group of us – mostly 16 years old at the time – decided we might as well go to Tijuana.
Back then you didn’t have to carry a passport to enter Mexico, or return to the U.S. For a land border crossing a drivers license was sufficient.
That afternoon a friend and I sat outside and had a beer. It wasn’t a problem that we were underage (the legal drinking age was 18), but we were warned we were breaking the law by drinking outdoors.
We walked around a bit and I spent $5 on a ‘Rolek’ watch. It was a pretty good replica, with hands that ‘swept’ rather than ticking. I thought it was a pretty good value.
That trip was the first time I ever witnessed the bribing of a border official.. and I’m the one that did it. A good friend on the team was a permanent resident, not a citizen. When it came time to head back into the U.S. and back to our hotel, all they were asking at the border was “are you a citizen?” One member of our group was born in Mexico, looked the part of someone who might be entering the U.S. illegally, but actually was a U.S. citizen. He simply answered yes, and he was let on right through.
My friend from India though answered honestly, “No, I’m not a citizen but I have a green card.” They wanted to see it.
We hadn’t planned to leave the country, so he didn’t bring his green card with him. He had his drivers license, but the green card was at home – a 7 hour drive away. The border officer said he’d need to call his parents to bring it down, so that he could be let back into the country.
This wasn’t something we had bargained for. We didn’t exactly tell anyone we were leaving the country – not the school, not our teachers, not our families. He didn’t want to call home from Mexico, and double down with the trouble by making his parents take a 7 hour drive to bail him out.
I chimed in, “since he has a green card there must be a record of it, maybe we could pay a processing fee to look it up?”
Lucky for us, and especially lucky for my buddy, on that day and at that land crossing, there was an option to look him up in the system. Rather than quoting a price we were asked, “how much do you have on you?”
Of course we were only high school kids, we’d spent our money on beer and fake designer goods. Between us all we had was $90. Lo and behold, that was the exact amount of the processing fee! All of us were welcomed back into the country.
To be clear the fee was only payable in cash. No receipt was given. And the price was set only after we’d told the officer how much we had. $90 was worth a lot more thirty years ago.
That wasn’t my last run-in with U.S. immigration authorities at the Tijuana land crossing, however, because two years later I’d be in school in Southern California where the legal drinking age was 21 but it was just 18 a short drive away… and the story of how I couldn’t answer “are you a citizen” is a topic I might share another day.
Currently, the legal drinking age in Canada is 19 in Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, and Yukon, and 18 in Alberta, Manitoba, and Quebec.
Accordingly, high school and college students in the Detroit, Michigan area, and young adult DTW airport passengers make a run to the border to Windsor, Ontario, Canada, to see which person can blow a blood alcohol level over .20 and maintain a permabuzz before returning to the United States. View from the Wing readers should always drink responsibly.
I always enjoy hearing your war stories.
Well played, sir!
To make a slight modification to a classic ghostbusters line, “When somebody asks you if you’re a US citizen, you say ‘YES!!!’”
Nice! Love it!
Thanks for sharing, Gary.
Surely the peanut gallery commenters will be along shortly calling for you to immediately report to Gitmo.
Note sure I would be sharing this story if you enjoy your Global Entry status. Though I’m betting CBP records from that period have not been digitized, and of course there is unlikely to be documentation of the processing fee.
Gary never said who paid the “fee”. 🙂
A friend and I drove to Nogales, Mexico one day in 1986. We spent several hours drinking it up in a bar and we were practically knee-walking drunk when we drove back to the border crossing late that night. When we reached the border, the customs agent wasn’t at all concerned with our drunken state (despite me being unable to locate the engine and trunk releases on my car to open them for inspection, and both of us falling out of the car when we got out), the agent was only concerned with whether we had drugs in the car. After they searched the car and had a K-9 dog sniff the car and us, we were released. We drove to the nearby McDonalds in Nogales, Arizona and slept in the parking lot till noon the next day.
Did the uniformed border control person keep the file reference fee as personal illicit income?
As with customs duty, they sometimes waived the fee in part or in whole, but they shouldn’t be pocketing any of it.
Back at around the same time as your San Diego incident, US green card holders with US driver’s licenses with a US address on it would often be allowed back into the US from the Canadian side on the basis of the US state driving license and saying they are going home and where home is.
The only time I have had a problem with returning from Mexico was at Calexico when returning from El Golfo de Santa Clara. Two friends were musicians so they had earrings and slightly different looks. They were body cavity searched wasting an extra two hours. My car, motorcycle and motorcycle trailer were no problem as were another friend and I. Giving money for quick entry would have been waving the red cape at the bull.
I’m more impressed by the fact that
1) A group of 16-year-old boys would have $90 in their pockets coming back from Tijuana. For my high school trips, that’s about how much money we would have when we went to Tijuana.
2) You were willing to give all your money to get your friend back into the US- I suspect we would have not been so generous!
Great story. Excellent civil behaviour.