family visiting - trip to Mexico
 

Folks - I'm a Brit LPR in SoCal - next week my parents are visiting. We're debating driving into Mexico - either for a day, or 4-5 days, not sure yet. Can anyone point me at an information that will inform me as to what, if anything, we need to do for them? They are Brits, and will have ESTA's - but I don't know if we can just drive them across the border and back with their passports, or if we need to make more formal arrangements?

thanks in advance,
Matt

Re: family visiting - trip to Mexico
 

To anyone responding, would the same apply to Canada also?

Re: family visiting - trip to Mexico
 

Traversing the border, either north or south isn't a big deal, just show their passports, and their ESTAs cover them for returning to the US. Their entry date, for the purpose of counting 90 days in the US is not reset by leaving the US to visit Mexico or Canada.

Re: family visiting - trip to Mexico
 

thanks for the reply - and Mexico doesn't require anything from Brits entering other then a passport?

Re: family visiting - trip to Mexico
 

We went on a trip from San Diego to Mexico for 3 days. Entered Mexico at Tijuana - just showed passport to Mexican Border Force.
On return US border force just scanned passport and that was it! This was in 2012. Might be bit tighter now I suppose!
Also no problem going from Seattle to Vancouver. Passport checked and stamped by Canada Border Force and on return to USA pulled aside and asked where we'd been etc. Took 5 minutes. Presumably they could check our ESTA online?

Re: family visiting - trip to Mexico
 

ESTA doesn't apply to land border crossings. Your folks will need to pay the $6 land crossing fee, even though they will have an "in-date" stamp in their passports. Blaine, WA border post collected $6 from me despite having several weeks left on my WT stamp in my passport. This was in 2014. Their justification? "ESTA is invalid for land. We need $6 to process your arrival on a separate system". Maybe I made a donation to the Christmas party fund.

Re: family visiting - trip to Mexico
 

Mexico only requires a valid British passport but you'll need to complete an immigration card on arrival and present it on departure.

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-ad...y-requirements

Re: family visiting - trip to Mexico
 

I've driven to Canada a couple of times with my British parents. They did get a Canada eTA just in case, but as we were driving it wasn't needed. We weren't charged anything - they just asked a few questions including how much cash we were carrying. We weren't charged any fees.

My daughter goes to boarding school right beside the Canadian border and often you can get cheaper hotels in Canada than the US, so we do a fair few border crossings.