GLORIA: BORDER SHOULD OPEN
San Diego mayor meets with officials in Washington to press them to lift restrictions on U.S.-Mexico land crossing
San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria met last week with federal officials in Washington, D.C., to advocate for the full reopening of the border, which has been closed to nonessential land travel for the past year and a half.
Gloria spoke with White House officials, senators and representatives during his first visit as mayor. He said it is crucial to make decisionmakers aware of how these restrictions are harming border communities.
“While we did not get specifics on when these restrictions may be lifted, there was at least a recognition of the challenges that presents to our community and a lot of the inequities that are part of it,” Gloria said in an interview via Zoom.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced last month that the ban on nonessential travel will remain through at least Oct. 21. But as has happened every month for the past year and a half, the federal agency may extend them again.
Businesses in San Ysidro lost about $644 million in sales and about 1,900 jobs between March 2020 and March 2021, according to the San
Ysidro Chamber of Commerce.
Also, nearly 200 of 650 businesses in San Ysidro have closed since the travel restrictions were imposed, the chamber says.
“A lot of the border businesses on the San Diego side are closing because they just don’t have the number of customers that they used to,” said Jerry Sanders, president and CEO of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
“People really moved back and forth across that border fluidly to shop on both sides, and now that the border is closed for most people, it makes it really difficult,” he added during an interview at the Borderless Business Congress in Tijuana.
Both sides of the San Diego-Baja border have similar COVID-vaccination numbers, Gloria noted.
In San Diego County, 78.8 percent of the eligible population is fully vaccinated, while in Baja California, 80.5 percent is fully vaccinated, according to the latest data.
“When you can share that information in person, face to face, my hope is that it remains in their consciousness when they make decisions about whether or not to extend these prohibitions,” Gloria