Those who live and work in the US and Mexico worry hardline immigration enforcement will erode their cross-border lifestyle

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The San Ysidro port of entry is the busiest land border crossing in the world, a fortress of concrete, steel and concertina wire through which some 70,000 cars and 20,000 pedestrians travel each day.

They include tourists, migrants, and long-distance truckers, but also commuters: people who begin and end their day in San Diego, with a trip to Tijuana to have lunch with family – or who live south of the border, but travel every day through San Ysidro to work in the US.

And, as Donald Trump turns up the heat on America’s southern frontier, they are wondering if the president’s hardline immigration enforcement will erode their cross-border lifestyle.

Andrea Guerrero, the executive director of the community group Alliance San Diego, told the Guardian that Tijuana and San Diego are “one community, with one heart”.

“Our future and our potential is tied together and we feel together,” Guerrero said. “We feel together when there is pain and we feel together when there is hope.”

She said the Trump administration had manufactured a crisis at the border that had harmed asylum seekers and migrants, while also disrupting the daily lives of people in San Diego and Tijuana.

“When you put guns in the mix and put hate in the mix, you are dampening the compassion and you’re undermining our humanity,” Guerrero said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers are seen at the San Ysidro port of entry border crossing as seen from Tijuana, Mexico. Photograph: Hannah McKay/Reuters

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On 26 November, Trump closed the Tijuana-San Diego checkpoint for five hours, making good on a threat he had made several times since more than 6,000 Central Americans arrived in Tijuana, fleeing violence, political intimidation and economic hardship.

A permanent border closure is impossible – the border stretches 2,000 miles from San Diego to Brownsville, Texas, and in some places, is not even marked.

But closing one port of entry, even for just a few hours, creates major disruption for border communities.

“I’ve always crossed, my entire life,” said Janeth Bezada, a US citizen who lives in Tijuana but was working in the US, at Las Americas premium outlets, when the San Ysidro closure happened.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Janet Bezada, a US citizen who lives in Tijuana, crosses the border regularly. Photograph: Amanda Holpuch for the Guardian

The San Diego outlet mall, just a few feet from the San Ysidro crossing, was forced to shut down for the first time since it opened 20 years ago because of the border closure – costing an estimated $5.3m during a key holiday shopping weekend.

With a border patrol helicopter clattering noisily overhead, Bezada said she hadn’t been too worried during the closure because she had friends and family on both sides of the border.

But the mere threat of it happening again is a looming menace for people who depend on daily travel across the border. “Not being able to control that is what drives people crazy,” Bezada said.

From the mall, the helicopter was the only hint that a humanitarian crisis was occurring just a few hundred feet away.

Across the border, thousands of people were crowded into shelters and tents, desperate for a chance to seek refuge in the US.

More than 6,000 Central Americans have reached Tijuana over recent weeks in a series of migrant caravans, providing Trump with the justification for his move to “harden” the border. Many of them are fleeing violent street gangs, corrupt officials, domestic abuse or homophobic violence, and hope to claim asylum in the US.

But even before the recent arrivals, the Trump adminstration had started limiting how many asylum seekers can enter the US each day to be screened, causing a growing bottleneck in Mexico.

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In Tijuana, local authorities have struggled to cope with the swelling population of migrants, who were initially housed in a dilapidated sport center near the border.

The dynamic is playing out at a much smaller scale in other Mexican cities along the border.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A US military helicopter flies past a pedestrian bridge after the closing of the United States-Mexico border south of San Diego, California. Photograph: Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images

The parallel situations have worried people who live near busy ports of entry such as the one between Nogales, Arizona, and Nogales, Mexico. US Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) has been conducting drills in Nogales similar to the ones that took place before San Ysidro was closed, and locals have warned CBP that a similar shutdown could have “catastrophic” consequences for the region.

Such consequences are largely economic: the interdependent lifestyle in border towns means local businesses are especially vulnerable to the president’s provocations.

About 4.9 million people live in the Tijuana-San Diego region, which has been a hub for cross-border commerce and tourism for more than a century. During prohibition, Americans headed south in search of easy access to alcohol. Nowadays some still head to Tijuana for booze, but they also seek inexpensive healthcare and prescription drugs.

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At times, it seems there are as many cars in the city with California license plates as with those for the surrounding Baja California. In the touristy downtown, dollars are accepted like pesos and English is a constant.

A Tijuana dentist, Oved Téllez, said the temporary border closure could have long-term consequences for his business.

“Most of our patients that come from the US [but] they don’t want to come any more because they are not certain about what’s going to happen on the border when they are here,” Tellez said. “They are afraid that when they come the border will close again.”

Guerrero, of Alliance San Diego, warned Trump’s aggressive tactics at the border have been introduced with no thought of the realities of people who live, work, play and pray on both sides of the border.

Guerrero said: “The president is playing a brinksman game and he’s doing it using real people, real lives, real consequences as game pieces.”