San Luis, south county await border reopening
Mayor: “this is going to be very important for the holidays that are coming ...”
SAN LUIS, Ariz. – For Mayor Gerardo Sanchez, the federal government’s decision to reopen the border to tourists and shoppers from Mexico couldn’t come at a better time, especially with the holiday season approaching.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security set Nov. 8 as the date ports of entry in San Luis and other U.S. border cities will begin allowing across Mexicans for non-essential visits.
The closures have been in place since March 2020 in an effort to contain COVID-19. Only those Mexicans with reasons deemed essential for coming to the United States were allowed in, such as those with jobs in this country, those pursuing education and those needing medical care.
“This is going to be very important for the holidays that are coming – for Thanksgiving, for Christmas,
for New Year’s Day,” Sanchez said. “We are going to be able to do a lot of things that we haven’t been able to do over the past year. Families are going to get together again. There are people who haven’t seen one another in a long time because of the border closure, and we are going to go back to seeing more pedestrians on Main Street, where businesses have suffered the most.”
Shops in downtown San Luis typically depend on consumers from Mexico for most or much of their sales. Sanchez said purchases by shoppers from Mexico account for nearly 60% of the city’s annual sales tax revenue.
“Businesses on Main Street are the ones that have suffered the most without that flow (of shoppers),” Sanchez said. “Various ones have closed during these months. The reopening is going to help a lot. But we won’t know