10 minutes versus 3 hours?

[Amelia]

If you are in rural Texas, three hours by car away from the nearest hospital, 90 minutes by car away from an official point of entry between Mexico and Texas, but only a ten-minute walk away from a Mexican town with free healthcare, it is technically legal to walk into Mexico, but it is illegal to walk back over to Texas at the same crossing.

What is your opinion about seeking healthcare in the nearby Mexican town?

1. It's okay to walk 10 minutes to Mexico to get emergency care, but not okay to walk back to your Texas home -- you should face penalties if you don't return via the legal border crossing no matter how far away that is.

2. It's okay to walk to Mexico, and it's okay to walk back home.

3. You shouldn't go to Mexico for your healthcare anyway, no matter how much more convenient it is than going to the hospital 3 hours away.


More details, including input from a border patrol agent:

In Rural West Texas, Illegal Border Crossings Are Routine For U.S. Citizens



Edit: poll questions in truncated version, due to character limit.

 

[rocket88]

If you are in rural Texas, three hours by car away from the nearest hospital, 90 minutes by car away from an official point of entry between Mexico and Texas, but only a ten-minute walk away from a Mexican town with free healthcare, it is technically legal to walk into Mexico, but it is illegal to walk back over to Texas at the same crossing.

What is your opinion about seeking healthcare in the nearby Mexican town?

1. It's okay to walk 10 minutes to Mexico to get emergency care, but not okay to walk back to your Texas home -- you should face penalties if you don't return via the legal border crossing no matter how far away that is.

2. It's okay to walk to Mexico, and it's okay to walk back home.

3. You shouldn't go to Mexico for your healthcare anyway, no matter how much more convenient it is than going to the hospital 3 hours away.


More details, including input from a border patrol agent:

In Rural West Texas, Illegal Border Crossings Are Routine For U.S. Citizens



Edit: poll questions in truncated version, due to character limit.

I don't care what you do for healthcare, but crossing should be limited to legal crossings.

 

[joko104]

When did it become the practice of the Democratic Party and most Democrats to find any thing possible to sob and cry about, mostly of all seeking for anyway to attack the sovereignty of the United States?

 

[Lovebug]

From the article, it seems to be reciprocal. School, access to whatever the other doesn't have. I have no idea about the towns involved, but am guessing that this gotcha poll. We have seen many of these type of questions lately. Arabic numerals, big bang priests, this. May be the lesson we could learn is that integrity can't be compromised.

 

[Manc Skipper]

I don't care what you do for healthcare, but crossing should be limited to legal crossings.

I watched a report from the Canadian border last night where enforcement has been stepped up recently. A section of street runs along it, but Americans can't walk on the sidewalk because that's in Canada, and the Library entrance is in Canada but some of the rooms are in the USA. Cars are allowed to pass along both sides, but people on foot have to go to an official crossing point to visit across the street!

I found the clip! (on the Youtube page, he thanks the mayor for his help when the Border Patrol questioned why he was filming!

 

[Amelia]

From the article, it seems to be reciprocal. School, access to whatever the other doesn't have. I have no idea about the towns involved, but am guessing that this gotcha poll. We have seen many of these type of questions lately. Arabic numerals, big bang priests, this. May be the lesson we could learn is that integrity can't be compromised.

Not a gotcha poll.

I don't think.

I mean I don't even have any premeditated follow-up questions that I'm hoping someone will give me an invitation to post.


Just an example of how complicated things can get. I made my vote. It's public.

I suppose I might think of some gotcha points later. Right now I'm tired and hungry and barely have any conscious thoughts, much less a conscious agenda.


.... off to eat.

 

[TheParser]

The bottom line, IMHO, is how great is the emergency?

If you or a loved one has a serious emergency, I feel that it makes sense to rush to the closest place for help. (Minutes, even seconds, can count.)

I would, however, NOT go to Mexico for a "minor" emergency. Although the Mexican people, I hear, are very friendly and nice, there are some officials (cops, for example) who may take advantage of naïve American visitors.

 

[Mason66]

If you are in rural Texas, three hours by car away from the nearest hospital, 90 minutes by car away from an official point of entry between Mexico and Texas, but only a ten-minute walk away from a Mexican town with free healthcare, it is technically legal to walk into Mexico, but it is illegal to walk back over to Texas at the same crossing.

What is your opinion about seeking healthcare in the nearby Mexican town?

1. It's okay to walk 10 minutes to Mexico to get emergency care, but not okay to walk back to your Texas home -- you should face penalties if you don't return via the legal border crossing no matter how far away that is.

2. It's okay to walk to Mexico, and it's okay to walk back home.

3. You shouldn't go to Mexico for your healthcare anyway, no matter how much more convenient it is than going to the hospital 3 hours away.


More details, including input from a border patrol agent:

In Rural West Texas, Illegal Border Crossings Are Routine For U.S. Citizens



Edit: poll questions in truncated version, due to character limit.

Is it illegal for a person that has the right to be in either country to cross where they want?

 

[Amelia]

Is it illegal for a person that has the right to be in either country to cross where they want?

Yes, it's illegal to cross into the U.S. except at official border crossings. Both the American and Mexican can legally cross into the Mexican town. It's illegal for either to cross the border at the closest point to the rural American town in question. Illegal even for Americans. The law technically requires them to go to the official crossing which is a 90-minute drive away.

 

[Mr Person]

When did it become the practice of the Democratic Party and most Democrats to find any thing possible to sob and cry about, mostly of all seeking for anyway to attack the sovereignty of the United States?

When you imagined it.

Ok ok, that would only work if you were a deity. So let us refine that to "[in and only in your head] it bec[a]me the practice of the Democratic Party and most Democrats to find any thing possible to sob and cry about, mostly of all seeking for anyway to attack the sovereignty of the United States, once you imagined it"

 

[SMTA]

If you are in rural Texas, three hours by car away from the nearest hospital, 90 minutes by car away from an official point of entry between Mexico and Texas, but only a ten-minute walk away from a Mexican town with free healthcare, it is technically legal to walk into Mexico, but it is illegal to walk back over to Texas at the same crossing.

What is your opinion about seeking healthcare in the nearby Mexican town?

1. It's okay to walk 10 minutes to Mexico to get emergency care, but not okay to walk back to your Texas home -- you should face penalties if you don't return via the legal border crossing no matter how far away that is.

2. It's okay to walk to Mexico, and it's okay to walk back home.

3. You shouldn't go to Mexico for your healthcare anyway, no matter how much more convenient it is than going to the hospital 3 hours away.


More details, including input from a border patrol agent:

In Rural West Texas, Illegal Border Crossings Are Routine For U.S. Citizens



Edit: poll questions in truncated version, due to character limit.

Steve McQueen tried Mexican healthcare, just one time......

 

[SMTA]

When did it become the practice of the Democratic Party and most Democrats to find any thing possible to sob and cry about, mostly of all seeking for anyway to attack the sovereignty of the United States?

Yet another moronic and completely worthless post.

 

[Bodi]

Crossing the border illegally is exciting... kinda a thrill. We used to do it on the weekends from time to time.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

If you are in rural Texas, three hours by car away from the nearest hospital, 90 minutes by car away from an official point of entry between Mexico and Texas, but only a ten-minute walk away from a Mexican town with free healthcare, it is technically legal to walk into Mexico, but it is illegal to walk back over to Texas at the same crossing.

What is your opinion about seeking healthcare in the nearby Mexican town?

1. It's okay to walk 10 minutes to Mexico to get emergency care, but not okay to walk back to your Texas home -- you should face penalties if you don't return via the legal border crossing no matter how far away that is.

2. It's okay to walk to Mexico, and it's okay to walk back home.

3. You shouldn't go to Mexico for your healthcare anyway, no matter how much more convenient it is than going to the hospital 3 hours away.


More details, including input from a border patrol agent:

In Rural West Texas, Illegal Border Crossings Are Routine For U.S. Citizens



Edit: poll questions in truncated version, due to character limit.

But but but but but ...I thought we had the greatest health care in the world!

 

[OldFatGuy]

I watched a report from the Canadian border last night where enforcement has been stepped up recently. A section of street runs along it, but Americans can't walk on the sidewalk because that's in Canada, and the Library entrance is in Canada but some of the rooms are in the USA. Cars are allowed to pass along both sides, but people on foot have to go to an official crossing point to visit across the street!

I found the clip! (on the Youtube page, he thanks the mayor for his help when the Border Patrol questioned why he was filming!

Nonsense. I lived along the Canadian border for years. Used to drive to Kingston Ontario for Chinese breakfasts and back, through no checkpoints. The border couldn't be more porous. Not much has changed, just less people on the NYS side. No town has budgets to cover all the small roads and streets that cross the border. No one really cares, especially come dead winter. People work and attend school on one side of the border, live on the other side. Same town, same village. Even the same farms. We'd canoe or kayak across Lake Ontario as we went fishing come summer, hitting the same shorefront places once used by those who transported booze during prohibition. You could still see the truck tracks that led to the beaches, docks, and piers.

A block away from checkpoints, no checkpoints, or fences, just roads and beaten paths. The mayor of one town near the border lived two blocks out of town in Canada. No one else wanted the part time job. He also delivered the mail and was the town dog catcher, responsible for tracking down domestic dog packs running down deer for fun. Locals bet on the dogs. Harvey didn't move that fast. Sometimes forgot about the mail. Especially when the snow was deep.

 

[Manc Skipper]

Nonsense. I lived along the Canadian border for years. Used to drive to Kingston Ontario for Chinese breakfasts and back, through no checkpoints. The border couldn't be more porous. Not much has changed, just less people on the NYS side. No town has budgets to cover all the small roads and streets that cross the border. No one really cares, especially come dead winter. People work and attend school on one side of the border, live on the other side. Same town, same village. Even the same farms. We'd canoe or kayak across Lake Ontario as we went fishing come summer, hitting the same shorefront places once used by those who transported booze during prohibition. You could still see the truck tracks that led to the beaches, docks, and piers.

A block away from checkpoints, no checkpoints, or fences, just roads and beaten paths. The mayor of one town near the border lived two blocks out of town in Canada. No one else wanted the part time job. He also delivered the mail and was the town dog catcher, responsible for tracking down domestic dog packs running down deer for fun. Locals bet on the dogs. Harvey didn't move that fast. Sometimes forgot about the mail. Especially when the snow was deep.

That may well have been the case, but as the whole clip keeps saying, this is a recent development. It used to be like you describe, but no more for now.

 

[Kreton]

That may well have been the case, but as the whole clip keeps saying, this is a recent development. It used to be like you describe, but no more for now.

It depends on where you are. I was in Vermont and went to derby town and they were far more lenient with it than they were when I was crossing through Niagara. Even in the town they said things have gotten far more strict since 9/11 and even more so with Trump. The library and opera house (according to them the only one in the world where you can sit on one country and watch the stage in another) are pretty open but beyond that there are patrols from both sides that from what I was told weren't there a short time ago.

 

[OldFatGuy]

That may well have been the case, but as the whole clip keeps saying, this is a recent development. It used to be like you describe, but no more for now.

I speak to friends and relatives who live along the border almost daily. If anything, the lower population density has made for more porous northern borders than ever before. I own significant land in northwestern NY, along the border and crossing it. No one is checking border crossings except my workers who don't care about the borders. They can go for weeks without encountering other humans besides themselves. They are concerned with chasing off drunk hunters, stupid and inconsiderate campers not following fire control procedures, not people crossing borders for nefarious purposes. This is all media BS and political photo ops.

Ocean going vessels ply Lake Ontario, yet we have all of two Coast Guard cutters active on the lake, the Canadians 3 rescue boats. The US Coast Guard has 241 active cutters, 1,600 small boats to patrol all the Great Lakes, both coasts and all their ports, the Mississippi and other major navigable inland rivers. Small private fishing and pleasure boats exist by the thousands, ignore harbor masters, and utilize their own docks and piers on private lands. Some are necessary for commuting to island homes, or different work and residence venues on shore. The US Navy, outside of engineering needs, does not patrol the Great Lakes or the St Lawrence seaway. Certainly no border patrols.

It is no different in other border states. Do you have any idea how vast our northern borders are? How sparsely populated the majority of the areas distant from major border cities? Or the lack of money for standard policing in those cities, let alone border watches?

One of my friends owns a 12k acre ranch on the Wyoming Canadian border, moderate for the region. He can work his land and sheep flocks for months without encountering anyone outside his family and workers, their families. Twice during the last 3 decades he's been visited by local law enforcement, for social purposes. He has his own landing strips, two small planes, two helicopters, a variety of small boats and canoes for the navigable rivers that cross his land or the small lakes situated on the land. When flying locally, including across the border and back, he doesn't bother with flight plans. There are no harbor masters. There are only dirt roads for his own use. Every spring he drives his excess flocks to the nearest RR stop, 40 miles away, for sell off. Same with a few truck loads of unprocessed wool bales, and an annual log harvest. That RR stop is across the border. His neighbors fare similarly.

 

[MTAtech]

Oh, I thought this thread was a forhims advertisement.

 

[Moderate Right]

If you are in rural Texas, three hours by car away from the nearest hospital, 90 minutes by car away from an official point of entry between Mexico and Texas, but only a ten-minute walk away from a Mexican town with free healthcare, it is technically legal to walk into Mexico, but it is illegal to walk back over to Texas at the same crossing.

What is your opinion about seeking healthcare in the nearby Mexican town?

1. It's okay to walk 10 minutes to Mexico to get emergency care, but not okay to walk back to your Texas home -- you should face penalties if you don't return via the legal border crossing no matter how far away that is.

2. It's okay to walk to Mexico, and it's okay to walk back home.

3. You shouldn't go to Mexico for your healthcare anyway, no matter how much more convenient it is than going to the hospital 3 hours away.


More details, including input from a border patrol agent:

In Rural West Texas, Illegal Border Crossings Are Routine For U.S. Citizens



Edit: poll questions in truncated version, due to character limit.

Why would anyone want to live is such a ****hole city with a population of 150 on the Mexican border in the middle of nowhere? There's a lot more here than meets the eye.

 

[Moderate Right]

But but but but but ...I thought we had the greatest health care in the world!

LOL. If you prefer Mexican healthcare than that of the US then you should give it a whirl. Hell, you can't even drink the water down there.

 

[AliHajiSheik]

I speak to friends and relatives who live along the border almost daily. If anything, the lower population density has made for more porous northern borders than ever before. I own significant land in northwestern NY, along the border and crossing it. No one is checking border crossings except my workers who don't care about the borders. They can go for weeks without encountering other humans besides themselves. They are concerned with chasing off drunk hunters, stupid and inconsiderate campers not following fire control procedures, not people crossing borders for nefarious purposes. This is all media BS and political photo ops.

Ocean going vessels ply Lake Ontario, yet we have all of two Coast Guard cutters active on the lake, the Canadians 3 rescue boats. The US Coast Guard has 241 active cutters, 1,600 small boats to patrol all the Great Lakes, both coasts and all their ports, the Mississippi and other major navigable inland rivers. Small private fishing and pleasure boats exist by the thousands, ignore harbor masters, and utilize their own docks and piers on private lands. Some are necessary for commuting to island homes, or different work and residence venues on shore. The US Navy, outside of engineering needs, does not patrol the Great Lakes or the St Lawrence seaway. Certainly no border patrols.

It is no different in other border states. Do you have any idea how vast our northern borders are? How sparsely populated the majority of the areas distant from major border cities? Or the lack of money for standard policing in those cities, let alone border watches?

One of my friends owns a 12k acre ranch on the Wyoming Canadian border, moderate for the region. He can work his land and sheep flocks for months without encountering anyone outside his family and workers, their families. Twice during the last 3 decades he's been visited by local law enforcement, for social purposes. He has his own landing strips, two small planes, two helicopters, a variety of small boats and canoes for the navigable rivers that cross his land or the small lakes situated on the land. When flying locally, including across the border and back, he doesn't bother with flight plans. There are no harbor masters. There are only dirt roads for his own use. Every spring he drives his excess flocks to the nearest RR stop, 40 miles away, for sell off. Same with a few truck loads of unprocessed wool bales, and an annual log harvest. That RR stop is across the border. His neighbors fare similarly.

You speak with friends almost daily, or they live along the border almost daily?

Wyoming doesn't border Canada.

 

[OldFatGuy]

You speak with friends almost daily, or they live along the border almost daily?

Wyoming doesn't border Canada.

Speak. Montana may as well be over the border. Just barely over a million people in the entire state. Almost double Wyoming's 577k. But still empty. Similar rural lifestyles. No one is knocking on the door.

My friend tells me he's going over the border, I think Canada, forgetting about Montana. It's so easy to forget. Both are easy to forget. Pretty country, but easy to forget.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

LOL. If you prefer Mexican healthcare than that of the US then you should give it a whirl. Hell, you can't even drink the water down there.

Since you've never tried it, you have no frame of reference. And as for the water, of course you can drink it, once your body has acclimated. The first week is Hell on Earth but after that your body adjusts.
And by the way, it's the smaller and older towns that have the most water problems.
If you live in one of the cities, or even visit, most places use water purification solutions to solve the problem, or they buy "agua pura", purified water and use water coolers.

If you're staying more than a week or two, ingesting small amounts of the local water over time will allow you to adjust, and after that you can do as you please.

 

[Mason66]

LOL. If you prefer Mexican healthcare than that of the US then you should give it a whirl. Hell, you can't even drink the water down there.

Moderate, I live in Mexico and I have had no problem with the health care.

I had Hepatitis A back in 2001 and a week stay in the hospital cost me $13,000 pesos with all the bells and whistles.

How much would that have been in the US?