Border Report: San Ysidro Businesses Still Hurting From Closures

The coronavirus-related restrictions on non-essential travel across the border have hit San Ysidro businesses hard.

At least 103 businesses have closed due to the border-crossing restrictions, said Jason Wells, the executive director of the San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce.

Typically, the clientele of businesses along San Ysidro Boulevard are made up of about 95 percent of people from Mexico, the majority of whom have tourist visas, Wells said. For the larger outlets, about 65 percent of clientele are from Mexico.

The holidays — between Nov. 20 and Jan. 6 — are particularly important to businesses along the border, as they are to many stores and businesses throughout the city. Wells said typically about 35 percent of businesses in San Ysidro generate their net gain in that period.

And while there will likely still be some sort of uptick this year, it probably won’t be enough to make up for the damage that border restrictions have caused. Wells said he expects the Christmas season to bring in about a third of the economic value it normally does.

“The federal government has really left us hanging,” Wells said. The San Ysidro Chamber of Commerce has sent letters to the president, the U.S. ambassador to Mexico and others, pleading that the restrictions be lifted sooner than later. So far they’ve only received a response from U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau.

“I understand the Southern California business community’s frustration with these restrictions, and I share your concern about the long-term effect of the pandemic on our economies,” Landau wrote. “I want to assure you I am working with other U.S. agencies and with Mexico to identify safe ways to ease the restrictions in the future and support our border communities.”

At this point, Wells doesn’t think the restrictions are even truly COVID-related, but simply something the administration has long wanted to do and for which the pandemic provided a justification.

“This isn’t about COVID,” Wells said. “These restrictions have no basis on or impact on health and that’s been documented.”

At this point, Wells is trying to get creative to help existing businesses make it through the remainder of the pandemic. They’re using Facebook videos promoting San Ysidro businesses to get more clientele from north of the border and painting murals in the area to attract visitors. Wells said they are planning some drive-in concerts at the newly built Tianguis market.

“We’re doing everything that we can, after fighting unsuccessfully for these arbitrary restrictions to be lifted,” he said.

Asylum-Seekers Are Still Struggling

Apprehensions of people who cross the U.S.-Mexico border have been steadily increasing for the past six months. There were more than 69,000 such crossings in October — the highest since July 2019, the Associated Press reports.

The increase shouldn’t be that surprising. As I’ve reported, many asylum-seekers stranded in Tijuana are facing increasingly desperate situations amid the pandemic. The coronavirus restrictions, paired with officials’ ability to immediately turn back people at the border during the pandemic, have accelerated a shift in who is crossing the border, the Associated Press reported in October. Now, more Mexican men who come for economic reasons are trying to cross, rather than asylum-seekers from Central America, Africa and elsewhere.

Al Otro Lado, an organization that provides legal assistance to migrants along California’s border, has expanded its fundraising beyond legal services to include direct aid in the form of food and housing assistance, urgent medical care, personal protective equipment and hygiene supplies, and phone and internet assistance for asylum-seekers in Tijuana.

As of November, there were more than 15,000 names on seven asylum waitlists in Mexican border cities, according to the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law. Most of the names are on Tijuana’s list.

Meanwhile, Just East of San Diego …

• Mexicali’s Chinese-Mexican cuisine is a result of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, after which many Chinese left the United States for Mexico, where they were welcomed by the Mexican government to go to the sparsely populated border region and work on farms, mines and canals. (KQED)
• Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector has seen a spike in drug trafficking busts in recent months, with an 85 percent increase in fentanyl seizures and a more than 500 percent increase in methamphetamine since last year. (Fox 5 San Diego)
• The discovery of possible human remains at Kumeyaay cultural sites has sparked a new attempt to halt border wall construction. The tribe filed a motion in federal court asking U.S. District Court Judge Anthony J. Battaglia to shut down remaining work even as the government pauses construction in the El Centro sector. Battaglia rejected bids for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction in the civil suit, but the tribe is hoping the new discovery and some other recent court decisions may change its chances in the case. (Times of San Diego)
• In the last month, the number of positive coronavirus cases in the Imperial Valley has doubled. (Radar BC)

Tijuana Sewage Updates

• All beaches from the international border to the south end of Seacoast Drive in Imperial Beach were closed Saturday because of sewage flowing from the Tijuana River entering the United States following recent rain. (City News Service)
• The federal government has pledged $300 million to the intractable border sewage problem, which allows millions of gallons of untreated sewage to pour into the Pacific Ocean. Two companies — one from Mexico and one from the United States — are hoping to get a piece of that funding with proposals to recycle the sewage water, reports Voice of San Diego’s Mackenzie Elmer.

Baja Is Also Seeing an Uptick in COVID-19 Numbers

• Baja California surpassed 600 active COVID cases Sunday and registered a 55 percent hospital occupancy. If hospitalizations continue to increase, the state government may have to open additional auxiliary hospital units, like those in the Tijuana’s Zonkeys stadium. (Zeta)
• Baja California’s government will receive a COVID-19 vaccine in mid-December. Only 5 percent of medical personnel will be able to receive it then, while the general population may have to wait until March or April 2021. (Radar BC)

More Border News

• So far this year, more than 1,800 homicides have occurred in Tijuana, meaning the city has the highest number of homicides in Mexico. (Tijuana Press)
• The U.S. government appealed a judge’s order barring the expulsions of immigrant children who crossed the border alone, a policy enacted during the coronavirus pandemic to deny the children asylum protections. The government said in court filings that U.S. shelters near the border will hit capacity by Dec. 12 if the order stands. (Associated Press)
• San Diego’s Cross Border Xpress unveiled new biometric facial comparison technology. (Biometric Update)
• Most experts agree President-elect Joe Biden will fulfill his campaign promise to stop building President Donald Trump’s border wall, but it’s still unclear how the incoming administration will repair the environmental, cultural and political damage the wall’s construction has already inflicted. (Courthouse News)
• A U.S. citizen was fatally shot while waiting in Mexico to cross the border at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. (NBC 7)