What does this have to do with needing a passport to get back into the US? Try to answer without the snark, if that’s possible, please.
I don’t know what would work coming back from Mexico, but my advice would be, like Eva Luna said, to go to the passport office on Wilshire in Los Angeles and see how fast they can get it to you. In pre-9/11 days I was able to renew my passport and get the valid one on the same day there. Now it might take two or three days. Ask them if you can go pick it up when it’s ready instead of them mailing it to you.
It’s hard to get back into the US if you’re being detained abroad because you don’t have a passport. You said that such a situation could not arise (“you can’t be detained legally in another country for lack of a passport”) and it is my contention that you are wrong. I have personally observed people being detained because they failed to show a valid internal or external passport on request to a police officer.
I wasn’t aware that getting a tooth yanked cost much more than a hundred bucks or so? Surely expediting a passport and driving down to tee-jays can’t be that much cheaper?
Money is a big issue. BIG. That’s why I’m going to Mexico to begin with. So blowing an EXTRA $60, on top of the original $60 for the passport is not a minor thing. Especially since gas or train tickets + taxi to get to and from the dentist from LA is another $40-$80. So I’d be $200 in before my teeth have even been looked at.
It’s not a single tooth, it’s three, none of which can be yanked without screwing up my mouth completely, and since all three are clustered on the top and bottom of the left side towards the front, it would be disastrous to lose them all.
Since I’m only 52, not, 72, it is important to me to take care of my teeth and hang on to them if I can.
The problem is two old fillings that were thisclose to the nerve channel to begin with. Add bruxism (grinding) and you end up in serious pain needing root canals. In Los Angeles, the best price I was quoted, including the crowns that are necessary after the root canals, is around $1500 PER TOOTH. My Mexican dentist, who comes recommended by a friend who found him to be much better than any other dentist he’d ever had, charges a total of $560 per tooth, from x-ray to crown, all inclusive.
Not only that, the best price I was ever quoted for a mouth guard (to protect myself from further damage due to the grinding) was $550. Mexican dentist quoted $60.
Ouch. Sorry.
Some thoughts:
Dentistry schools often do work for cheap (since you’re basically the test subject). You’re in LA - there have to be a few around, maybe look into that?
Also, I was under the impression that you could get a temporary cap on a root canalled tooth. Maybe you could afford to get the root canal and cheap cap and then go down to TJ for the crown?
So that option’s out. I hope someone will come in here with the right answer. Otherwise, I can think of these things to try:
- see if there is a number for the state department that you can call
- see if there is a number for border control that you can call
- ask your dentist if he can give you the name of an american citizen that you can call
I suppose this link was already in the thread somewhere, but I see here
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/cis_pa_tw_2223.html
According to the state department, you need at least a passcard like Alice The Goon mentioned.
Good luck!
Also, my experience has been that if you have blond hair and blue eyes customs officials are more prone to wave you through. Happened to me several times when I was in a group of people walking across the border, the people that looked hispanic were stopped and not the people that looked caucasian. Of course the last time I walked across the border was pre-9/11 so my anecdote is of no help to you.
A root canal at UCLA school of dentistry is $5-600, before the cap.
Believe me, I wasn’t eager to do this in Mexico, it was just impossible to find any American solution that was remotely affordable.
Last time I flew to Canada and had forgotten my passport at home, the ticket agent told me I could leave the country with my state ID (driver’s license), but to get back in someone would need to send me a birth certificate. I didn’t want to chance it, and fortunately we were early enough that I had time to go home and get my passport.
Just a thought, but how about going to a sports shop and getting yourself a mouth-guard?
Yes, that’s where I’ve seen the spot checks. (To be honest, they didn’t seem to be entirely random—the police appeared to be targetting Gypsies.) Russia is another country where carrying your internal passport (for citizens) or external passport and visa (for tourists and other visitors) is a legal requirement. This seems to be a common requirement in former Eastern Bloc countries.
actually, I believe in most parts of Europe there is a generalized requirement to have your national ID card on you at all times for identification purposes. I believe the degree to which cops can haul you in and temporarily detain you while they assess your identity (as opposed to writing you a ticket, or just letting it slide, or not having any sanction) is where they differ.
Let’s not give someone reading a message board the false opinion that because they are an American, they can just travel wherever in the world they want. It is not a good idea to travel to a foreign country, especially one that is not contiguous to the US and where English is not widely spoken, to travel without a passport.
*I once tried to get on a plane to Australia without a valid visa because duh Americans don’t need tourist visas to most places, especially and anglo-saxon first world country. :smack:
Many Germans believe that this is true for Germany, but it isn’t. There is no general requirement to carry ID with you all the time (and I don’t). If the police, however, want to identify you and you don’t have your ID card or passport with you they may take you to the police station to find out if you are who you say you are. You are not in violation of any laws in not having the ID with you, however.
In fact, I believe that a temporary (non-immigrant) visitor in the US is technically required to carry their passport (and visa) at all times.
Well, I have the answer, and it’s easily summed up as: the new “law” is actually more of a suggestion.
The punishment for ignoring the suggestion is waiting in a line that is one fifth the length of the passport line…but moves at about one twentieth the pace of the passport line. (A woman who got in the VERY LONG passport line at the same time I got in the not nearly as long non-passport line got through about 40 minutes before I did, and it took me an hour. And I’m sure someone will point out that that doesn’t work out to one-twentieth, because this is the Dope and that’s just how we roll, especially in GQ.)
Furthermore, not a single person in the non-passport line was refused re-entry while I was there, and only one was significantly detained. They took him aside for further searching after he apparently tried to smuggle more than a single carton of cigarettes through.
There was at least one woman, very young and entirely at ease, in my own non-passport line that was completely incapable of even speaking a word of English and sailed through as easily as everyone else who did not have a passport.
I also talked to people in line who do this all the time and they said it’s always like that. Sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but you get through. I did not ask if everyone had their birth certificates or if anyone was just carrying basic ID, but I did have mine. They barely registered the fact that my last names don’t match, and I pointed it out.
So that’s the story on passports and the Tijuana border crossing back into the US on foot. I can’t speak to lack of birth certificates, other border crossings, or the experience in a vehicle.
So what quality of work did you get from the Tijuanan dentist? He didn’t try to give you the ol’ “Tijuanan Tooth Pull”, did he?
Just so you know, that’s the US embassy, not the Mexican embassy.
Amazing in every respect. His associate did the root canals (two, top and bottom, directly in line…ugh) and he did the prep for the crowns. Top drawer in every regard.
On top of that, Dr. De La Vega was warm, compassionate, patient, knowledgable, and he has a joyful spirit.
After the work was done, he had his assistant personally escort me to the corner pharmacy, where the pharmacist was waiting with my three prescriptions, ready to go, $35 cash for all three, bing bang boom and I was escorted back to the dentist, where Dr. De La Vega personally made two phone calls to taxi drivers he knew to come pick up for the $5 taxi ride to the border. His taxi driver showed up in a few minutes looking very dapper in nicely pressed slacks, crisp shirt and tie with sweater vest; he opened my door for me both when he picked me up and when he dropped me off.
The work I had done yesterday (two root canals, two posts because my teeth were trashed, prep for crowns to come) would have cost $2600 from my old dentist. Best american price I was able to find outside schools was $1800, in schools $1500.
Dr. De La Vega charged $600. The crowns will cost $400 and would have cost $2400 from my old dentist.
In other words, royal treatment at peasant prices.