Southbound pedestrians at the world’s busiest border crossing, San Ysidro, face increased customs inspections with Mexico’s launch of a new immigration building.
Mexican immigration officials will start checking passports at six inspection booths in the building on Thursday.
Known as East Gate, the facility includes three lanes: one for Mexicans, another for non-Mexicans and one for visitors who plan to stay in Mexico longer than a week.
Pedestrians will be asked to press a button that will randomly select people who must pass their baggage through an X-ray scanner.
Top Mexican and U.S. officials held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday for the facility.
Gil Kerlikowske, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, applauded the opening of East Gate.
“(Mexico and the U.S.) have a dual mission on border security,” he said at the ceremony. “We both must make investments in infrastructure, and certainly, this building is reflective of that.”
“A healthy border infrastructure is vital to our economies and our respective national security,” Kerlikowske said.
Mexican immigration officials said the facility won’t lead to long wait times like those for U.S.-bound pedestrians.
Rodulfo Figueroa, head of Mexico’s National Migration Institute in Baja California, said enforcement will be sensitive to the flow of people walking across the border into Tijuana.
Customs inspections rules have long been in place at the southbound San Ysidro border crossing. But the new building gives Mexican officials the infrastructure to enforce them.
Mexico’s finance minister Luis Videgaray, also spoke at the ceremony. He called for more collaboration between the United States and Mexico on border infrastructure, saying it will increase trade between the two countries and benefit both economies.
“Without a doubt, we have to recognize that since implementing the North American Free Trade Agreement, trade has increased to a greater degree than we’ve improved border infrastructure,” Videgaray said.
He called Otay II, an upcoming toll-funded port of entry in Otay Mesa, “the most important” project for boosting trade between the United States and Mexico.
Francisco Vega de Lamadrid, Baja California’s governor, said East Gate was part of an ongoing effort to improve border infrastructure across the state.
The state’s tourism minister, Oscar Escobedo Carignan, said in an interview that he thinks East Gate will allow Mexico to receive visitors “in a more dignified way.”
The building will serve about 22,000 southbound pedestrians a day, officials said.
