Public Safety

SDSU Students And Faculty Plan To Protest Tijuana Travel Ban

By Amy Isackson / Border Reporter

Published May 21, 2010 at 9:09 AM PDT

This story was published more than 13 years ago.

Traffic in the U.S. enters Mexico at the San Ysidro border crossing, the world's busiest, on June 27, 2008 in Tijuana, Mexico.

A group of San Diego State University students and professors plan to cross the U.S.-Mexico border Saturday to protest the California State University system's ban on study and research in Tijuana.

The group plans to relax on blankets at a Tijuana park, visit art galleries, and go out to eat.

Gina Chapa is a Master's student at SDSU in Public Health and Latin American Studies. She says she chose to study at SDSU for its proximity to Tijuana and its bi-national curriculum.

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"It's wealth is it's on the border. You could get an international education. And, yeah, a lot of students were able to do that, until now," said Chapa.

Cal State's chancellor banned travel to Tijuana in March after the U.S. State Department issued a travel warning for Mexico. The warning came after drug cartel-related violence flared up across the border from Texas and three people tied to the U.S Consulate were murdered in Ciudad Juarez.

Ciudad Juarez is 700 miles from Tijuana. The warning does not say to avoid Tijuana, but to be cautious there.

Drug related violence in Tijuana has dropped this year.

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Amy Isackson

Amy Isackson was the border reporter at KPBS from 2004 to 2011. She covered breaking news and feature stories on California-Mexico border issues and immigration, for local and national broadcast. Amy got her start in public radio by pitching a series of stories about rural New Zealand - horse dentistry and sheep sheering - to Radio New Zealand's "Country Life" program. She then worked with Peabody Award-winning radio producers Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson, to help create the Sonic Memorial, a series of stories on the World Trade Center before, during and after 9/11. Amy's work has been recognized with awards from the Associated Press Television-Radio Association of California and Nevada, the California Chicano News Media Association, and the San Diego Press Club. She won the Sol Price Prize for Responsible Journalism in 2009 from the Society of Professional Journalists for her story about high school students smuggling people and drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Prior to venturing into the wonderful world of public radio, Amy worked for Yahoo! Inc. for nearly five years as an editorial surfer, associate producer and broadcast communications manager. She majored in Latin American History at Williams College. She grew up in San Diego and made frequent trips south of the border.

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