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| 79 6 Going Southbound Mexican Divorces and Medical Border Runs Differences in laws throughout history have drawn U.S. residents south of the border. As with travel southward for illicit entertainment and the pleasures of drinking, gambling, and sex described in earlier chapters, U.S. and Mexican residents crossed the border in both directions for a variety of other aims that took advantage of permissiveness in one country, or at least the more ready availability of goods and services. As laws change from time to time between the two bordering countries, border crossings are reshaped too. The following examples of mostly southbound crossings demonstrate the connectedness between Mexican and U.S. law, and consequent border crossings. A vivid example is the so-called Mexican divorce once offered in Juárez as well as in other border town locations such as Tijuana. State divorce laws in the United States used to more rigidly articulate specified grounds of fault as a condition to divorce. New York was the strictest, recognizing only one ground for divorce into the 1960s—adultery proven by third-party testimony. Couples wishing to divorce there had to resort to staged infidelity, or travel to another state to obtain a divorce.1 Other states allowed additional grounds for divorce such as proof of cruelty or desertion, but granted divorce only to the victimized spouse.2 A few states were more lenient, but they required residency to seek divorce. Although states such as Idaho and Nevada authorized divorce after only six weeks’ residence, establishing residency for such an extended period was burdensome, particularly for Hollywood stars and other celebrities who seemed to change spouses as often as they did clothes. Mexico, however, offered a more convenient and cheaper alternative. Beginning in the Depression times of 1931 when the Mexican state of Chihuahua liberalized its divorce laws, its largest city, Juárez, became the world’s divorce capital.3 Between 1940 and 1960 alone, more than half a million married U.S. residents crossed the border to return single.4 Although variations 80 | Mexican Divorces and Medical Border Runs existed, the most common technique involved mutual consent of the spouses, with one traveling across the border and the other appearing through a Mexican lawyer by proxy. El Paso travel agencies lured U.S. residents, particularly New Yorkers, to fly south aboard so-called Divorce Runs or Freedom Riders’ Specials. Once in El Paso, the traveling spouse would cross the border by cab to meet a Mexican lawyer, all part of the travel package, and to sign the Official Registry of Residence of the Juárez City Hall certifying he or she was in Juárez. Three divorce courts waited downstairs to complete the process of this bilateral proxy divorce for the traveling spouse.5 Another Mexican lawyer represented the absent spouse by proxy (a power of attorney signed by that spouse). The divorce was complete the same day for legal fees in the early 1960s that amounted to as little as $500.6 Hordes of celebrities obtained the Mexican quickie divorce. Notably, Richard Burton divorced his then-wife Sybil Burton using this proxy procedure in Puerto Vallarta while filming Night of the Iguana and courting Elizabeth Taylor. Johnny Carson, Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Marilyn Monroe, Bette Davis, Charlie Chaplin, Mia Farrow, Tony Curtis, Jane Mansfield, Norman Mailer, Shelley Winters, and Gloria Vanderbilt were among the celebrities who headed south of the border married and returned single.7 Legal uncertainties dogged the Mexican divorce throughout its history, especially the possibility of a divorce without two willing parties. Actress Shelley Long crossed the border to Tijuana with Tom Cruise in the film Losin’ It and emerged with a cinematic Mexican divorce without her spouse’s knowledge. Similarly, the vocal group The Drifters released a Burt Bacharach song, “Mexican Divorce,” in 1962, calling a Juárez divorce a sin and begging the border-bound spouse not to go. New York courts, in fact, would not honor such an ex parte divorce without both parties’ agreement, nor would they recognize a “mail order” divorce in which both parties executed powers of attorney to Mexican lawyers, but neither spouse traveled across the border.8 New York’s highest court did honor a Juárez bilateral proxy divorce in a 1965 decision, thereby giving its residents who could afford to fly to Mexico the opportunity to elude its rigid divorce laws if both spouses agreed to the divorce and at least one appeared in Mexico.9 At...

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