Joel Ewbank and his girlfriend were heading to Tijuana for a day of shopping when Mexican immigration officials stopped them at a new border building Friday.
Mexico’s San Ysidro customs inspections facility, East Gate, has separate lines for Mexicans, non-Mexicans and visitors who plan to stay for longer than a week. It also has six booths where officials check passports and fill out immigration forms.
Ewbank said he stood in the line for non-Mexicans for about 20 minutes.
“Before noon on a weekday, I think that’s kind of crazy,” Ewbank said.
Ewbank said officials stamped his passport and asked him questions about where he was going and how long he planned to stay. They also had him press a button to determine whether or not his backpack would be inspected. A light on the security stand turned green, allowing him to proceed.
The last time Ewbank visited Tijuana from San Diego, he just walked across the border, no questions asked. He’s one of many pedestrians who expressed frustration with the facility, which opened this week.
“It’s actually a lot more difficult than getting into any other country I’ve been to,” Ewbank said.
The facility was launched as Baja California is experiencing what the state's tourism minister, Óscar Escobedo Carignan, called "its best tourism moment in eight years."
Customs inspections rules have always been in place here. But the new building gives Mexico the infrastructure to enforce them. Officials said about 22,000 southbound pedestrians pass through East Gate daily.
Forty-one-year-old Tamara Gonzalez is a U.S. citizen, but she moved to Tijuana after her husband was deported from San Diego.
She often crosses the border for dialysis treatments in San Diego. While on her way back to Tijuana from the hospital on Friday, a Mexican immigration official told her she would have to purchase a $22 permit because she planned to stay in Tijuana for longer than a week.
“It’s way harder, I don’t understand it,” Gonzalez said. “I mean, I’ve been living here without problems, and now they want me to have a passport, they want me to pay.”
José Natera, a 69-year-old citizen of both the U.S. and Mexico, lives in Rosarito but crosses the border every day to get insulin injections for his diabetes in San Diego.
His dual citizenship meant he didn’t have to wait in line at East Gate. But the pathway leading out of the facility to downtown requires Natera to walk farther than before.
“For handicapped people and older people it’s too far and too difficult to walk,” he said. “I’m really mad about walking, I’m too old.”
Not everyone is upset about the new configuration. Gabriela Rodriguez, also a dual citizen of the U.S. and Mexico, said she felt the border crossing process was swift.
“It doesn’t affect me at all because I have dual citizenship,” Rodriguez said. “I didn’t have any problems. I passed perfectly well.”
Rodriguez, 50, said she thinks it makes sense for Mexico to enforce its immigration rules, as the U.S. and other countries do.
“They should do everything legally here,” Rodriguez said.
