STOP PUNISHING DAILY COMMUTERS
My community is made up of transborder individuals, people who have a deep connection to two countries and navigate between them frequently. Due to our geographic location at the U.S.-Mexico border, there are many individuals like me who carry out a transborder lifestyle because of economic, cultural and family ties who are distributed across both countries. I have lived a transborder lifestyle practically all of my life, and have seen changes in the border landscape and border security and practices. The last five years were an overwhelming time due to candidate and then-President Donald Trump’s push to restructure the border wall and an increase of technology, including X-ray machines, at the ports of entry.
The widespread use of X-ray machines at the ports of entry would only delay the border wait and increase the sense of militarization present at the border.
To contextualize this, the international border between the cities of San Diego and Tijuana in Baja California is one of the most frequently crossed borders in the world, with approximately 90,000 northbound crossings each day, according to the San Ysidro Land Port of Entry. It has been estimated that 8 percent of Tijuana’s working population may commute to the U.S. for work, and most are essential workers.
This same border is already equipped with cameras (many cameras), microphones, other X-ray machines, Radio Frequency Identification technology and even barbed wire! Now the Department of Homeland Security wants to X-ray every vehicle that crosses into the U.S. The measure seems excessive to the common border commuter— not to mention unsustainable.
During this past year, in the middle of the pandemic, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Border Patrol sought to implement new regulations to discourage people from crossing the border due to non-essential traveling and the increase of COVID-19 cases in the region, causing lines to be extremely long with border waits exceeding 10 hours. The Sunday after their announcement, as a direct result of their actions, an 89-year-old woman was found unresponsive inside her car in the northbound lanes and a car went up in flames. If the border waits increase like they did this past summer due to the implementation of X-ray screening, extraordinarily unfortunate occurrences will continue to happen.
Furthermore, any partial closing of the border would only accentuate who the real border crosser is: the transborder population, U.S. citizens and residents, who cross for various essential and non-essential purposes.
Every time the government decides to add yet filter of security, it is not considering that this is another filter that has to be crossed by average people who are just trying to get to work, school, a medical facility or simply to their families. Those filters do end up delaying our day and the actions that we need to carry out. It is noteworthy to mention that the implementation of stricter or more frequent screenings is a direct result of drug trafficking at the borderlands. In the news, you hear only about the seizing of drugs and drug operations, but you do not hear the many cases of profiling that occur against the transborder youth and workers. It is not mentioned that their identity and persona are questioned and their civil liberties are restricted. Take, for example, the 9-year-old girl who was detained at the border for 30 hours or the targeting of journalists, activists and attorneys by the Department of Homeland Security, both in 2019. Those stories, when they make it to the media, hurt because this is our community. That could be us.
In terms of health hazards, border crossers are already exposed to low air quality and contaminated water, and in some cases residents face periods of time with no water at all. The radiation found in X-rays is said to be minimal, but this changes when you are exposed to it on a frequent basis. Looking ahead to the reopening of the border after the decrease of COVID-19 cases in California and Baja California, the use of X-ray machines for daily crossing would have a deep negative effect on the economy in San Ysidro and San Diego as a whole.
Early in the pandemic, it was estimated the San Diego region’s public agencies could lose billions in tax revenue because of the related closures. Many of the customers of the Las Americas Premium Outlets mall in San Ysidro are Mexican shoppers, and this additional X-ray screening would make the lines and the waits longer, discouraging shoppers from crossing and affecting the jobs of those working in the plaza.
For this and many other reasons, the implementation of X-ray screenings would only complicate the already multidynamic and overwhelming life of transborder individuals who cross due to basic necessities.