She said when she has to work a morning shift, she crosses on foot the night before and stays in San Ysidro. Harris crosses five days a week, three of which are on weekdays. It takes anywhere from five to 10 hours to cross in your car.” “Horrible,” said Kellee Harris, who lives in Tijuana and works at Urbn Leaf, a cannabis dispensary in San Ysidro. “I’ve been waiting for 4 hours and I’m still only here.” “I thought they were joking when they said 5 to 8 hours to cross,” reads one post in Spanish from May 4, along with a picture of the person’s place in line. The Facebook group Como Esta La Linea Tijuana, in which regular border-crossers share photos and update one another on wait times, has been filled with chatter of the long waits. Customs and Border Protection estimates wait times based on how far out an officer can physically see the line of vehicles. On Thursday, wait times were above average up until 6 a.m., with a two-hour wait at 2 a.m., compared with an average of 25 minutes. On Monday, at 11 p.m., border wait times in the San Ysidro general lane were about four hours long, according to Customs and Border Protection’s Border Wait Times app. CBP did not directly comment about the long wait times. The week beginning April 27 saw a 3.8 percent increase in vehicles and a 14.7 percent increase in pedestrians crossing through ports of entry, compared to prior weeks. daily for pedestrians and vehicles since early April.īorder traffic has gradually increased over the last four weeks, said Angelica De Cima, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman. The Tecate Port of Entry has only been open from 5 a.m. Operations at the PedWest facility at the San Ysidro Port of Entry have been suspended since April 5, funneling all pedestrian traffic to the San Ysidro east border crossing. Starting April 26, the Calexico East border crossing began operating from 6 a.m. Hours at the Otay Mesa Port of Entry were limited from 6 a.m. Pedestrian crossings are down even further, by 71 percent to a daily average of 16,500.īeginning in April, Customs and Border Protection, which operates ports of entry, began to modify operations. But the remaining few who do cross aren’t sailing through instead, they’re being funneled into a modified setup that has resulted in excruciatingly long waits.Īverage vehicle crossings have plummeted 49 percent across California ports of entry. Jay’s experience encapsulates the strange new reality at the border: Restrictions that went in place in mid-March limiting border crossings to essential travel have meant far fewer people are crossing. He took the trolley from the border, and was 20 minutes late. It took him another hour and a half to cross, but Jay said he knew he still got across faster than if he had continued to wait in his car. He got out of line, and parked in a lot near the pedestrian crossing. Customs and Border Protection.Īfter waiting for three hours, he realized he was never going to get across in time to make it to work. VOSD agreed to withhold his last name because he fears retribution from his employer or U.S. Jay lives in Tijuana and is an essential employee for a federal government agency in San Diego. I thought, ‘I’ve got to get out of here.’” But by 5, I still knew there were hours ahead because of the length of the line and how slow it was moving. “I thought I had plenty of time, getting there at 3:30 a.m.,” Jay said. Jay got in the vehicle lane at the San Ysidro Port of Entry the morning of April 27 to head to work. The San Ysidro Port of Entry / Photo by Adriana HeldizĮssential workers who cross the border have been facing hours-long wait times every morning to make it to their jobs in the United States. Essential Workers Are Waiting Hours to Cross the Border | Voice of San Diego Close
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