Check this out...also...anyone with info please speak up....

This morning, I took our oldest daughter to school early, because she has rehearsals for commencment. All went well, but she told me something later when I picked her up, that somewhat bothers me.

She told me that the schools former rescource officer who is now a border partol officer, got up on stage and said something interesting.

According to her, he said that the border (to mexico) will be closed to those under the legal drinking age (21), unless accompanied by a parent, and also that they will be giving breathalyzer checks to those under the legal drinking age upon entry to the united states. (arizona)

Now, first off, does anyone have any information on this?

Second, assuming it is true, I fully agree with the breathalyzers. (I think)

Here is my boggle...

Assuming it is true, is it ok to prevent LEGAL ADULTS (those who are 18) from going somewhere where the legal drinking age is lower?

Is that just?

Is it legal?

This is something I have NEVER heard of before, and I don't quite know how to feel about it. Something seems wrong about it though, IMHO.

It seems parallel to forbidding people from visiting amsterdam to make sure they don't smoke a little weed.

Am I way off?

(again, IF it is true...I can as of yet find no information on the internet about it)

and wrong in so many ways. Back in the day, an 18 y.o. with a VA or MI or OH id could purchase alcohol in WV. No stopping them at the state line, mandatory beathalyzer before goung home, etc.

What will they do if they refuse the breathalyzer? If one is driving, implied consent is the rule, but if not driving? What happened to secure in their persons?

That is so 1790s. Get with the times!

...and there aren't any open containers of alcohol in the vehicle I don't think it makes a rats buttocks worth of difference whether someone is under 21-- I presume they can simply refuse the breathalyzer as long as they're not driving (just my opinion, however-- not legal advice). As far as I'm aware, there is no law against people under 21 drinking, only against providing them with alcohol. If that happens outside the officers' jurisdiction I doubt there's much they can do except inconvenience the "kids" and their parents.

18,19, and 20 year olds can drink legally in mexico.

I am haveing trouble understanding how it can be legal to prevent them from entering another country AS ADULTS - under ANY GUISE. (in the context of specifically denying entry to legal adults 18, 19, and 20 years old...added on second edit for clarity)

On edit: Isn't this a form of discrimination based on age or some kind of rights violation? At 18, you can own property, sign legally binding contracts, get drafted, be sued civilly, and be convicted as an adult in a court of law. It doesn't seem right to me that considering those things, your travel can be restricted as an adult without committing a crime - simply based on age.

Must be a member of law enforcement using misleading tactics to dissuade teens from heading to Mexico for booze.....sweet, sweet booze.

Will they also be stopping US 19 year olds from drinking in Europe? Or smoking pot in Holland? Or watching hardcore porn in Germany?

It cuts both ways - if you've got to obey the laws of the country you're visiting, then I don't see how your own country has any right to govern your behaviour whilst out of the country, or prevent you from leaving the US for a vacation to go somewhere that the laws are less restrictive.

It is a basic feature of citizenship (in a mature liberal democracy, that is) that one may leave and re-enter one's country of citizenship without let or hindrance. No permission is needed, no obstacle may be thrown up. As long as the other country lets one in, one may go; and as long as one can prove one's citizenship, one may return.

And all that someone under 18, even, would need is acceptable proof of a custodial parent/guardian's permission to leave; s/he could not be prevented from leaving (unless there were some child welfare issue involved), or required to do anything other than show proof of citizenship upon returning.

Other than that, the same laws apply at borders as at any other places. Breathalyzing can only be done with reasonable/probable grounds, etc.

As far as random searches at borders, I figure that although they do violate the standard prohibitions on unreasonable search and seizure, the violations can be justified by an overriding public interest in public safety and whatnot. I wonder whether anyone has ever challenged them?

Me, I got tired a few years ago of being asked by Cdn customs officers at the Canada/US border and at airports, when returning to Canada, "what was the purpose of your visit?" (i.e. visit to wherever I'd been). I decided that the next time someone asked that, I was going to say "mind your own business", or, in proper Miss Manners form, "how kind of you to ask" (followed by silence). I don't have to explain my comings and goings to anyone.

I mentioned this to a border immigration officer I was professional pals with one day, and he said that in fact instructions had recently been issued to customs officers to stop asking this question, for precisely that reason.

Nonetheless, when I was returning from Chicago a couple of years later, and had spent an hour of New Year's Eve sitting on the Port Huron-Sarnia bridge, and was in an all-round foul mood already, the customs officer inquired as to the purpose of my visit. I said something along the lines (in slightly more obstreperous Miss Manners form) of "why do you ask?" Well, she wanted to know whether I'd received any xmas presents. So I said: "Why don't you ask me whether I received any xmas presents?" So she did, and I showed her the neat garage-sale wall mirror my friend had given me, and onward I went.

Now of course I can't pull this shit going the other way. US officials are perfectly entitled to ask, and know, the purpose of my visit there.

Anyhow. There used to be a similar problem between Ontario and Quebec, between Ottawa (Ontario) and Hull (Quebec) -- Ontario's drinking age was higher than Quebec's, and/or Ontario bar closing time was earlier (at different times over the last few decades). Ontario drunks rioting in Quebec and driving home to Ontario were a constant problem.

Obviously, underdevelopment is the real problem. Quebec, in particular the area of western Quebec in question, was underdeveloped relative to Ontario. It needed youthful Ontario drunks to keep the local economy going. So it catered to them. The late bar closing hours were the mainstay of the Hull commercial district.

Then came development. The federal govt built big buildings on that side of the river, and there was a massive influx of civil servants working there, both from Ontario and from the resulting housing growth on the Quebec side. The Hull business district matured, from being an underdeveloped backwater to being a thriving retail and commercial centre. And, I think my vague recollection is right, Hull decided to impose earlier bar closing hours -- solving both its own and Ottawa's problem with youthful late-night drunks.

Obviously, the Mexican border areas need the trade, for the employment and cash it brings. They're not going to cooperate with any efforts to remedy the problem until they can afford to.

The same is true of things like the trafficking in women and children that goes on in many underdeveloped countries, where prostitution is a mainstay of the tourist trade. And of child labour and sweat-shops in general. Sex tourists from the more-developed world, and sneaker buyers in the more-developed countries, just don't cause problems for their own countries the way cross-border youthful drunks do.

A little off topic to be sure, but an interesting example of ... well, capitalism at work. And the blowback it sometimes causes.

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You guys and gal have pretty much reinforced my first reaction to hearing it, one of "this CAN'T be true". Being relatively new to the area, and inexperienced in local matters, the thought that maybe theres some knowledge I lack or something I hadn't considered keeps going through my mind in-between the "this can't be true"s.

Knowing our daughters propensity to miss/misunderstand important details in her "rush to understand", I believe at this point, that she either missed something, or misunderstood something, or both. That or as another poster put it, maybe this is just "scare tactics. The alternative just seems...unplausible.

I'm taking her to todays commencment rehearsals in just a few minutes, and I'll dig around and see what I can come up with when we get there. I'll talk to some others who heard the officer speak (supposedly this happened in front of the entire graduating class) and see what I can find out.

Again, thanks everyone for the input. I'll post what I find out.

...Spring Break. I'm not sure how it is justified though. It started out as checking everyone under twenty one that was coming back to the U.S. to see if they smelled of booze.

I did mispeak in what I spoke: random breathalyzing is permitted (here, and I believe in the US). So a police breathalyzer roadblock just inside the US border -- *after* the customs checkpoint -- would presumably be perfectly all right. The customs officers could even transmit licence numbers to the police at the roadblock, or who were otherwise handy, for cars in which they suspect there to be drunk drivers.

They just couldn't make the drunk-driving business any part of the re-entry-to-the-US business.

And the stuff about exit controls is just not credible.

I could maybe foresee (which doesn't necessarily mean approve of) exit procedures designed to identify and apprehend people leaving a country as part of some criminal conspiracy in or affecting that country, as a justified interference with rights/freedoms in particular circumstances, but not as part of a plan to get drunk.

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You're right about the U.S. too. Traffic checkpoints have been blessed by the US Supreme Court and by most state courts on the theory that they are traffic safety checkpoints, not unconstitutional searches and seizures without a warrant. A very few state courts have extended greater protection under state constitutions, finding that the "traffic safety" checkpoints were a pretext for stopping people without reasonable suspicion.

...the border and you have had a drink, but may not be drunk, and you are underage you will get busted. I think it is something like a Minor In Possession charge; the booze is in the stomach. It does not sound that fair to me...

The cynical side of me, well...me in general, thinks that this is not to keep drunks off the road but to keep all the drunks out at Padre Island (outside of Brownsville) buying the more expensive, and heavily taxed, U.S. booze. :)

To my knowledge there have been no lawsuits over keeping the Spring Breakers from going into Mexico to party but I expect there will soon be some if the ban still exists.

Oh, and I think the ban is only for evenings and early mornings. I'll try and dredge up more later.

At my niece's graduation last May there were three kids that were not there because they died in a drunk driving, single car acident.

According to my niece they had one or two kids every other year or so that dies in an DUI related accident, sometimes alone, sometimes by slamming into someone else.

At the graduation ceremony they treated it as if they died of a mysterious unnamed illness and the DUI issue was never brought up in public.

I absolutely agree with the idea of freedom of movement they are legally entitled to.

But I don't know how you allow it with out preparing yourself for standing at the graveside of young people year after year and repeating the elegy about "their whole life ahead of them" to preserve a tradition of partying at graduation.

When my kids were that age I was tempted to nail one of their shoes to the floor at 14 and not take the nail out till they were 25.

"When my kids were that age I was tempted to nail one of their shoes to the floor at 14 and not take the nail out till they were 25."

I hear that loud and clear.

"I absolutely agree with the idea of freedom of movement they are legally entitled to."

"But I don't know how you allow it with out preparing yourself for standing at the graveside of young people year after year and repeating the elegy about "their whole life ahead of them" to preserve a tradition of partying at graduation."

That is indeed a hard one, as I imagine it is for any parent.


In our case, our daughter isn't a party animal (thank goodness) and shys away from that kind of thing.(though college has been known to bring out the animal in those that previously never were, and she'll be there soon enough)

We continually stress to her that she's an adult now, and to really and consciously THINK about her choices, actions, and the actions of those around her, because now that she's an adult consequences are REAL and often permanent. Whether they be consequences of her choices, actions, or those of people around her.

Without stepping on her fledgeling toes, thats all we feel we can in fairness do. (well, besides the standard "you still have to follow the rules of the house so long as you live in it, adult or not" - that is)

Our 12 year old on the other hand...social butterfly...ALREADY very much into boys...we are going to have our hands FULL with her, methinks. (my SO tells me she wants me to make it a point of being in the process of cleaning my Beretta or the .22s in the future when boys arrive to take her out on dates ROFL!!)

It was a NUT house down at the school...Road construction (or as we jokingly refer to it locally - destruction ) was in progress on one side of the school, and not a parking space in sight anywhere, so I opted to just drop her off. Tonight is the real deal. Graduation. I will make it a point to investigate after the speakers and ceremony are done, and hopefully, talk to the officer who spoke to the graduating class himself.

One interesting tidbit that our daughter mentioned on the trip this morning...

She said that many of her Mexican friends were angry because they now needed permission to go into Mexico to their relatives homes and stood a chance of missing the Quincianera (sp?) for their younger female relatives, as many of them have parents still living in Mexico. Again, this could be a misunderstanding on their part, but I thought it potentially noteworthy.

I'll post an update afterward tonight.

If there is any truth to all of this, is it possible that lawsuits could come of it?

If true, I can just see someone attempting something similar in principal to the two brothers who used to roam the nation some years ago - one dressed in a business suit, and one dressed like a bum - asking for job applications separately, and suing the crap out of someone for discrimination for not giving the "bum clad" brother one.

Though, I have no idea if it would fly...

the school got many phone calls about this. Today, as our daughter tells it, one of the assistant principals got on the mic and clarified to the students what the deal was.

Anyone under 18 will need a parents permission to cross the border, and they will be doing the breathalyzer on everyone 18, 19, and 20, after they cross the border back into the US. Again, I am not sure if how I feel about that, singling out adults based on age...particularly in the case of those not driving, but it doesn't seem quite right. I dunno...

Anyone have any thoughts on that?


She also said that the AP told them that anyone under 21 caught drinking on the other side of the border will be arrested by the federal-es and sent back to the US. I don't know if thats true, or a scare tactic. On one hand, I know that they depend on revenue on the other side of the border, and would usually welcome any extra. Plus, that would be effective in scaring them, IMHO. On the other hand, it's possible that there has been trouble related to graduation time there in the past and they want no part of it.

Also, one of the local radio stations mentioned between songs a recommendation NOT to cross the border. They did not elaborate.