Can you fly to a U.S. border airport without any paperwork?

Question

In most cases, one can fly VFR in the U.S. without any flight plan. However, if you are crossing an ADIZ, it is my understanding that you have to file a DVFR flight plan.

Consider an airport such as KDGL (Douglas Municipal). In theory, it looks like one could fly to the airport from the north without ever crossing into Mexico, but as soon as you need to do a go-around you would be crossing the U.S. ADIZ into Mexican airspace (and crossing back into the U.S. when returning to the airport).

Do you need to file a flight plan (or any other paperwork or paying overflight fees) when flying to such an airport? Do you also need to file a flight plan if you are simply flying the pattern at the airport?

Answer 1

In the case of KDGL you need to keep your flying tight and plan your go around to avoid busting the AIDZ. Interestingly there is nothing in the AF/D about this and not any great written info on it. But there is a discussion you can look over here where someone reached out to the FBO about it and the answer was:

So I decided to take one for the team and bite the bullet and call the FBO to find out... he said that it's usually not an issue... most pilots do keep their pattern tight, and they cross over if they need to all the time. The FBO does get calls from Riverside, CA customs all the time to check traffic, but there's usually no issue with it. BTW... it is right traffic for 3 and left traffic for 21.

You may also want to checkout this related IFR scenario where effectively the appropriate ATC facilities coordinate as needed.