Blocker has been engaged with border issues since 2014 and visits Tijuana regularly for culture, entertainment and professional activities. He lives in San Diego.
Editor’s note: A previous headline for this story said “200,000 people” instead of “crossings.”
I belong to a huge local community that materializes early every morning and dematerializes late every evening. Its profile is regional, international and extraordinarily diverse. It invigorates education, culture, business, and social and family life. The bond uniting its is an arduous one, exacting its toll every workday. My community is highly vulnerable to the power of stacks of political and governmental actors in two countries, ranging from national presidents to front-line government agents, all with influence over the conditions of its existence. It goes largely unrecognized.
This community consists of the travelers through the U.S.-Mexico international land crossings of San Ysidro, Cross Border Xpress, Otay Mesa and Tecate in San Diego County. According to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, in 2022, we crossed back and forth close to 100 million times on foot and in buses and enger cars, a daily average of 266,000, exceeding the enger volume at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest in the world. We are a stable community of over 100,000 individuals, far larger than the homeless population the public focuses on much more intensely. We are authorized to cross by the U.S. and Mexican governments and so are not to be confused with the unauthorized migrant crossers whose movements in vastly smaller numbers dominate national debates. The statistics so far in 2023 point to a significant annual increase in crossings.
Those waiting to cross the border are U.S. citizens, Mexicans with a valid permit to enter the country and U.S. permanent residents or “green card” holders. A report by the University of San Diego reveals that in 2020, 35,000 workers and 7,000 students living in Tijuana crossed to San Diego for jobs and to study, and 2,800 San Diegans crossed to Tijuana for work. Rather than a flow of suspect or undesirable outsiders, this mobile community is mainly American and integrated into the binational regional society and economy.
But crossing the border northbound is a serious daily hardship. In recent years, border wait times have been the worst ever, despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on port of entry infrastructure. There are periodic, unjustifiable peaks of misery. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Washington-based decision-makers punishingly blocked crossings to “non-essential” travelers purportedly as a disease-containment measure, while continuing to allow U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents, and “essential” workers to cross, discrediting the disease-containment rationale.
Illogically, these remediable ordeals have gone on for decades, like the Tijuana River pollution disaster. But there is no dearth of specific, concrete ideas for improving the experience, even in the relative short term.
As a volunteer and consultant, I have actively ed so-far fruitless efforts to reduce border wait times. Progress would become more likely if this community’s voices were heard. But they are absent from the chambers of commerce, economic development corporations, advisory boards and academic groups with power and interests in the cross-border relationship, and from productive conversations with local, state and federal elected officials who do not prioritize improving their lot. Employers who depend on border-crossing workers do not mobilize to advocate for reasonable wait times. This community deserves effective action. The time for change is long past.
