Bulletin
March 18, 2021
With the greatest surge in
migrant and asylum seekers at the U.S. southwestern border in 20 years, the
Biden administration will have to quickly establish an efficient system to
manage the influx of people. This kind of event tends to “crowd out” other acute
issues at our border such as continuing restrictions to non-essential travel
and wastewater treatment in the Tijuana River Valley.
Historically, migration and
drug trafficking are the two major border topics competing with efforts to attract legislator and agency attention to
other topics the Smart Border Coalition finds significant. While the importance of those two aspects
about the border should not be downplayed, the coalition must not let up on its
advocacy for what we believe to be fundamental, vitally important improvements at
our border. Our congressional delegation and the authorities at Homeland
Security must not lose sight of the big picture by falling into “crisis mode.”
The Smart Border Coalition
prioritizes pushing the U.S. and Mexican governments to increase and maintain
their focus on the basic cross-border problems that have inflicted enormous costs
on our region for decades. It is frustrating to see national decision makers
and opinion leaders respond with intensity to legitimate but relatively
short-term issues such as the current migration surge while promoting no
effective solutions to persistently damaging conditions in and around the ports
of entry.
Our congressional delegation
and the authorities at Homeland Security must not lose sight of the big picture
by falling too deeply into “crisis mode” thinking. In my view, migration and
drug and human trafficking must not crowd out the more mundane but equally
harmful issues
of unexplained restrictions
on nonessential travel, exorbitant crossing delays and traffic congestion, and
longstanding Tijuana River pollution.
*****
U.S. Customs and Border Protection believes increasingly in the use of biometrics and
advanced tools at U.S. border crossings. In previous bulletins I have written
about the implementation of facial biometrics at all land ports. This is an important step in a much needed modernization
process.
CBP will also be tackling
advanced passenger data, high traveler volumes at certain ports using
analytical models for biometric matching, modeling for the ports of the future,
detecting concealed identities in vehicles, and counting passengers, among
others.
It has unleashed a large,
aggressive modernization effort. In the near future, CBP will be launching “CBP-1,”
an app for travelers wishing to know about port facilities, documentation, wait
times, traveler programs, visas and other important border crossing
information.
Innovation in the air travel
environment could be a good predictor of developments at the land ports of
entry. Today, several companies are working with CBP on vetting air travelers
before they land so they avoid waiting in line, or vetting them while at
airports and allowing them to get to gates even faster than having the “TSA
Pre-check” status. Imagine a mobile
passport that could clear travelers before driving to the port of entry.
This is not an impossible dream.
*****
Our March 4 Stakeholders Working Committee Meeting
featured Mexican Consul General
Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez on a Covid-19 prevalence and incidence study for
Baja California. The project was funded by the California Healthcare Foundation
with a $50,000 grant. Tests were applied in Tijuana, Ensenada, and Mexicali.
The
International Community Foundation, the University of California, San Diego,
the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California (UABC), the Colegio de
la Frontera Norte (COLEF), and the Mexican Consulate General in San Diego
are partners.
Field
work consisting of data collection has recently finished. 154 UABC students and
interns participated, doing 1,250 PCR (polymerase chain reaction that detects
genetic material from the virus) and serological tests. PCR results will come
in soon, performed by the state laboratory in Mexicali. The Massachusetts
Institute of Technology’s Broad Institute is analyzing serological results. Findings
are a few weeks away.
We
also heard from Hernando Duran, Antonieta Peregrina, and Sergio Cisneros on the
Rio Tijuana Initiative whose mission is to ensure an ecologically
sustainable Tijuana River, while connecting the city and providing public
access to all, through a collaborative management process, community action,
and strategic leadership.
This
is a 20-50 year solution to restore the river, generate open spaces, connect
the city, build community, and create value.
The
team’s action plan for 2021 looks at communication, education/ engagement,
public policy alignment, and technical implementation. They need to raise $850,000.
The first stage, from December 2020 to March 2021, requires $34,000.
Mario Lopez of IEnova, a
Sempra-owned company in Mexico, remarked that the company has enormous presence
in Mexico, with electric assets, gas utilities, gas/liquid assets, gas
pipelines, and storage facilities. It has invested $9.5 billion and has another
$2.5 billion under development.
Though
there is a challenging energy sector relationship with Mexico’s President Lopez
Obrador, IEnova has been able to grow.
Its
liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Ensenada will be able to liquefy
gas to sell in Asia. This is a $2-billion
investment.
Another IEnova venture, Energia
Sierra Juarez,
in the Rumorosa Mountains between Tecate and Mexicali is supplying wind energy
to San Diego and is expanding.
*****
Congratulations
to Consul General Carlos González
Gutiérrez for arranging a visit from the Acting Undersecretary of the Mexican Foreign
Ministry (SRE) in late February.
Undersecretary Roberto Velasco stated that the federal government
is fully committed to finding a solution to the Tijuana River Valley cross-border
pollution problem and is strongly supporting the construction of the Otay Mesa
East Port of Entry.
*****
At the joint COBRO and Borders Committee meeting,
the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG)
unveiled its new study on the impact of
wait times in our region. The study
derives from a 2016 effort that captured 11,000 surveys on travel
behavior characteristics and emissions-related information and more than 12,000
direct measurements of border crossing times.
SANDAG’s
economic analysis estimates impact to
regional, state, and binational economies in terms of losses to economic output,
labor income, and jobs. The analysis quantifies
impacts to regional air quality in terms of emissions (including greenhouse
gases) from vehicle delays in cross-border movements of personal and commercial
vehicles.
In general, the economic analysis finds that in 2016 output losses are $3.4 billion and a job
loss of 88,000. Anticipated losses
by the year 2025 grow by nearly 50% in terms of output, and 10% in jobs.
However, when additional capacity enhancements are implemented (i.e., new Otay
Mesa East Port of Entry, Calexico East bridge expansion, etc.), this growth
could be fully mitigated to below-2016 levels.
In terms of pollution
levels, planned infrastructure and
operational improvements are needed by 2025 and 2035 so that growing
delay and queuing do not overwhelm emission reductions derived from less-polluting
fuels and more efficient vehicles.
For
much more information please go to: https://www.sandag.org/uploads/projectid/projectid_535_28727.pdf
*****
There’s been a very positive
evolution in the planning and execution of the Otay Mesa East Port of Entry.
The new port is to begin
operating in the fall of 2024! It
will reduce wait times, spur economic growth, strengthen border security and
resiliency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance regional mobility binational
trade.
Most of State Route 11 connectors have been completed. Currently, Caltrans is working with CBP on port
requirements including new technology and innovations.
Mexico has started to work
on intelligent transportation systems and design for their facilities to
complement the U.S. facilities to work as a system.
There will be one single toll collection location on the U.S. side, with toll
sharing. The Mexican side will fund its side of the port of entry and its
right-of-way with public funds and will finance the roadway leading to the
port.
*****
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s USMCA Tijuana River Watershed Public Information Meeting in late
February focused on 10 key projects that address treatment, conveyance, and/or
source control. The agency focused on
projects on the U.S. side, but I believe this does not mean they are the most
cost-effective or practical solutions.
Four projects for Mexico
went unaddressed. One diverts or reuses treated wastewater from existing
wastewater treatment plants in Mexico to reduce flows into the Tijuana River.
Reuse is a large part of the solution given the high cost of bringing water to
Tijuana via the Colorado River and an even higher cost if a desalination plant
is ever built.
*****
It was good to sit down with Baja California Water Sanitation, Protection, and Management Secretary
(SEPROA) Salomón Faz last week. In good
spirits, Salomon was open to new ideas and projects about wastewater treatment
in
Tijuana is intent on finding solutions to the issue
before leaving office at the end of October.
*****
The Tijuana Economic
Development Council (CDT) continues its quest to organize a large
stakeholder group including doctors, transformation industry chamber (CANACINTRA),
state government, business people, and the exporter association (INDEX),
to speed up vaccination efforts in Baja California. The group is considering the CanSino
and AstraZeneca vaccines for this effort. The objective could be one
million vaccines.
I have predicted that the U.S.
will be awash with vaccines by May. Now is a perfect time to create a policy to
allow the U.S. to assign vaccines to border areas. Already many Mexicans are
travelling by air to U.S. locations in the U.S. to be vaccinated.
It would be interesting to know
how many Mexican nationals have been vaccinated in the U.S. – I think the
number is considerable. The U.S. has a strategic interest in keeping Mexico
healthy, particularly in the border areas. A good neighbor policy will not only
avoid deaths but will stabilize our supply chains stable and potentially
accelerate the re-opening of the border to nonessential northbound travel.
*****
I want to
congratulate Flavio Olivieri, Fellow at
the University of California, San Diego’s Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies,
for presenting his research on “The Evolution
of the Baja California Economy Towards High Value-Added Processes.”
His goal was to “identify and evaluate the degree of
progress of the determining factors that enable the development of an economy
based on high value-added processes in the State of Baja California.”
He hypothesizes
that in Baja there are “emerging economic sectors based on high-value added
processes that are linked to the economy of Southern California. These sectors
demonstrate growth opportunities and more equitable income distribution, and they
are tied to investments in determining factors associated with high value-added
economies.”
Key opportunities are in digital media, gaming, and
movie/series production. Software development is starting to run out of talent.
The Tijuana start-up
environment
requires a portfolio of projects that can be scaled and attract outside
resources.
What seems to be missing? Flavio, a long-time
coalition participant, sees a clear need for a merit-based “multidisciplinary
collaboration culture, investment in innovation infrastructure, risk capital
culture, prioritization of applied research, internationalization of higher
education, industry cluster convergence, talent, and quality of life.”
*****
Congratulations to Pedro
Montejo, new INDEX leader for
Tijuana, Ensenada and Rosarito (Zona Costa)! I spoke with Pedro not long ago.
INDEX has 350 members and is growing. One of his priorities is to survey maquiladoras (manufacturing plants on
the Mexican side of the border) about
needs for new services. The association
has been a champion for supply chain and water distribution issues, becoming an
effective intermediary between the state government and exporters/importers.
*****
I came across Tracelinx,
a food traceability and logistics software company in Tijuana. It is led by
founder Juan de Dios Ledezma and Guillermo Mejía, a
well-know actor in Tijuana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Increasingly, real-time
traceability “from field to fork” is gaining converts as the food and beverage
industry faces unprecedented regulation for safety and quality control.
Tracelinx works with one of the largest tomato producers
in Mexico, with fields in both Sinaloa and Baja California. Imagine real-time
visibility and tagging of tomatoes from the grower in Culiacán through the packer, transportation, the
broker, and a Subway restaurant in Minneapolis.
*****
Cubic Corporation, represented on the Smart Border
Coalition Board of Directors for many years, will go private sometime this year. Veritas Capital and Evergreen Coast Capital will acquire
the public company for $2.8 billion. Cubic is one of San Diego’s oldest
publicly traded companies.
*****
Our coalition will be
teaming up with Grupo Expansión, one of Mexico’s
largest media groups, to showcase our border region’s many examples of success
stories as well as the advantages it offers to those willing to take some risk.
The online magazine has the most recognized name in business in Mexico, not
unlike Forbes in the U.S.
*****
Bill Richardson, president
of the San Diego History Center, is
putting together an hour-long video on the remarkable photographic journeys of Harry Crosby throughout Baja
California, including his book Tijuana 1964. I confess that
until James Clark introduced me to
Crosby’s work, I was unfamiliar with it.
What I saw was absolutely
astounding: Harry Crosby in the late 1960s decided to retrace the old El Camino Real in the Baja Peninsula by
traversing it as Jesuit and Franciscan priests did in the 1700s. You may also know that in his journey he was
accompanied by someone who was in his early 20s and is today a veritable giant
in the multifaceted understanding of our region: Professor Paul Ganster of SDSU,
another faithful coalition friend.
Here is a 4-minute
preview of Crosby’s adventure: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-journeys-of-harry-crosby--2#/
*****
Our next online Stakeholders
Working Committee meeting will convene on Zoom on May 6th from 9:00
to 11:00 a.m. Please register in advance at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZApdOGhqTgrHtR1JhqQziqnamiJOfvtq1jf
After registering, you will
receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Thank you,
Gustavo De La Fuente
Executive Director
gdelafuente@smartbordercoalition.com
(619) 814-1386
