Crackdown on border travel leads to long waits

During the COVID-19 pandemic, U.S. flags nonessential entries.

SAN DIEGO — A Trump administration crackdown on nonessential travel coming from Mexico amid the coronavirus pandemic has created massive bottlenecks at the border, with drivers reporting waits of up to 10 hours to get into the U.S.

An employee at a company that provides support for businesses with Mexican operations saw the huge lines one night last month from his home in Tijuana, Mexico. A U.S. citizen, he lined up at midnight for a Monday morning shift at 8 a.m. in San Diego, and he still arrived 90 minutes late.

“I hope that it’s just startup fits and starts and that it will be a little more streamlined down the road,” said Ross Baldwin, the man’s boss and president of the TACNA Services Inc.

U.S. citizens and legal residents cannot be denied entry under a partial ban that the Trump administration introduced in March to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Going to work, school and medical appointments are deemed essential travel but going to shop, dine or socialize is not.

Andrea Casillas, who works at a Bed Bath & Beyond store in San Diego and lives in Tijuana because it’s less expensive, waited for four hours on a Monday.

“There is a price to pay (for commuting from Mexico), but it should be reasonable,” Casillas said. “This is going too far.”

The crackdown comes after U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it surveyed about 100,000 travelers coming from Mexico by car or on foot and found 63% of U.S. citizens and legal residents traveled for reasons that were not essential.

The agency on Friday began redirecting staff at 14 larger crossings in California, Arizona and Texas to get people through quickly on weekday mornings, when essential travel is heaviest, leading to big backups on the weekends.

On Tuesday, traffic was unusually light, with pedestrians wearing masks and keeping a short distance from each other. Weekend and weeknight delays are expected to grow, affecting people going to the beach or a restaurant. Waits soared across the border last weekend, with California crossings hit hardest.

The measures don’t apply on the Canadian border, which is also subject to the nonessential travel ban. Air travel isn’t affected.

Lines that snaked through Tijuana streets last weekend were the longest that many residents had seen, posing challenges for drivers desperate for a bathroom break.

Tijuana police said some people ran out of a gas in line. An 87-year-old woman died of a heart attack in her car as she waited in August to get through the nation’s busiest border crossing, in San Diego. Angry people stuck in traffic lit up social media. One of them, Yadir Melendrez, said he waited five hours to cross for work Aug. 24. “The crossing is being slowed down to exasperate people on vacations or nonessential trips!” he wrote in a text message.

Anne Maricich, deputy director of CBP field operations in San Diego, said the wait in California peaked at six hours by the agency’s count. Witnesses reported longer waits.

Taco vendor Christian Mendoza said a customer he served Aug. 24, a Monday morning, told him he waited seven hours. CBP officials believe the weekday jam was carryover from the weekend.

Before the pandemic, about 200,000 people a day entered the U.S. at California crossings with Mexico. The daily average plunged to about 70,000 people after the ban was announced in March but has since climbed to about 120,000.

CBP is under pressure to ease restrictions as border economies dependent on Mexican consumers come under more strain. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat, says downtown Laredo, in his district, is a “ghost town.”