San Diego Metropolitan - The Connection

Referring to the U.S.-Mexico border, Jeffrey Davidow, former U.S. ambassador to Mexico and now president of La Jolla-based Institute of the Americas, says, “The events of 9/11 changed everything, and changed nothing.” And those words present an accurate and insightful statement describing our San Diego-Tijuana border.

Think about it. It changed our perception of borders, adding the element of potential terrorist infiltrations to legal and illegal immigration, drug smuggling and commercial cargo transits. Sept. 11 will mark two years since that day of infamy, and what has changed?

This column of August 2001 was dedicated to border crossing delays that, when serious enough, cause economic disruption to both San Diego and Tijuana. It spoke of the thousands of San Diego residents who cannot afford local housing costs and thus rent or buy housing in Tijuana. And about the thousands of cars traveling from outside San Diego on Fridays to cross into Baja, and flow back out on Sunday afternoons clogging the border and highways.

So now — two years later — what has changed? Border delays remain a plague. Housing costs in San Diego continue to price large numbers out of the buying market. Tourism to Baja is down; purchases from Baja residents in San Diego are down. Wholesale purchases on both sides of the border are down. Maquiladora employment in Baja is down. Trade between California and Mexico is down. Investment to both sides of the border is down. Regional drug and illegal immigration intervention remains the same. The flow of goods and services along with social flow of people separated by a political border has slowed.

The major change has been the transformation of government policy toward the border. Before Sept. 11, border policy fixated on economic forces of supply and demand including in law enforcement. Legal entries into the United States were accommodated by issuing “72-hour, 25-mile limit” to Mexican border residents. That encouraged shopping, entertainment and business meetings, as well as social mingling; likewise tourist and business visas for Mexicans living away from the border were processed with economics in mind. Commercial truck crossing policy also was based on economics, both in favor and against allowing Mexican trucks access to our roads, though the arguments against were camouflaged.

Interfering with the legal and welcome economic transactions were the unwelcome and illegal economic activities: drugs and goods smuggling and illegal border crossings. But these also are economic activities — demand for drugs leads to supplying them; demand for cheap or labor shortages causes illegal immigration.

The events of Sept. 11 introduced a new element: terrorism, the deliberate entry strictly with the intent of destroying property and killing US citizens. This menace changed everything. Suddenly, policy makers saw the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico and the 4,000-mile U.S.-Canada border in a very different light. And terrorism, as we found out, is the “mother of all economic disruptions.”

The first border policy reactions were stabs in the dark: search everyone and everything, turn away anyone with the slightest suspicion, don’t listen to the local screams that border crossing disruptions were also economic disruptions (they’re talking money, we’re talking lives). The border regions and Washington, D.C., seemed worlds apart.

However, at the end of the day, the business of the United States is business; that’s the engine of the American miracle making the American dream possible. So while we still face great economic challenges, and California is faring worse than most other states in a seeming political meltdown, it would serve us well to review how far we’ve come with solutions to the new menace as we strive to stimulate our border economy.

In the span of two years, our military has decimated international terrorist leadership and curtailed their free movement and ability to attack at will. Internally, terrorist cells have been exposed, apprehended or forced into hiding. Though far from perfect, internal security is in place with the promise of getting better. Former federal agencies dealing with foreign entrants, border inspections and immigration law enforcement as well as customs for individual and commercial inspection and enforcement have been consolidated into the Bureau of Custom and Border Protection under one new cabinet position, the Department of Homeland Security.

In regard to our San Diego border, in July, the San Diego Association of Governments and the Committee on Binational Regional Opportunities, with the cooperation of Mexican authorities, presented a conference unveiling efforts to secure the borders and diminish crossing times.

The transcripts of presentations and recommendations flowing from the breakout sessions will soon be posted on the Sandag Web site — sandag.cog.ca.us. Leadership both at the federal and local level are dedicated to stopping terrorism and illegal border activity, while easing the flow of legal crossings between our two nations so that we may once again concentrate on the economics of the border.

Patrick Osio Jr. can be reached by e-mail at posiojr@aol.com.