Worse to come for epic lines at Tijuana crossing

Just over the boundary, Customs and Border Patrol dogs working the same lane earlier that day found some 90 pounds of marijuana packed inside the tires of a Chevrolet van, part of the daily battle to keep illegal people and drugs out of the U.S.

Regular crossers hardly blink at the show. Vicky Hernandez, 23, plucked her eyebrows on the way to work at a San Diego accounting firm. Marine repairman Luis Mendoza, text-messaging his wife as he sat behind the wheel, said he sometimes sleeps overnight in his clients' boats to skip the border wait.

Both Hernandez and Mendoza are U.S. citizens. But like many among the San Diego-Tijuana area's 5 million residents, they put up with the wait so they can keep their U.S. jobs while staying close to family and avoiding California's high rents.

"My dad's retired already, so he can't afford rent over there anymore," said Hernandez, who grew up north of the border in Imperial Beach. "I was planning on moving back by myself, but I was looking at apartments for like $1,000 a month, and that's $1,000 a month I can save."

Lines to get worse
Before the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S., border waits sometimes reached an hour at San Ysidro. Today's considerably longer lines will likely get worse before they get better.

Planing for a $577 million U.S. expansion of the San Ysidro port of entry is under way, with the current 24 lanes to get an additional six by 2014 along with a double-stack checkpoint system — think checkout lanes at Target. However, Tijuana has yet to come up with the money to build matching lanes on its side of the border.

San Diego-area governments also want to build a third border crossing east of the Otay Mesa port — that would be paid for by a toll, to avoid the long wait for U.S. federal money. But the project is still only a proposal. Tijuana would have to bulldoze a squatters' neighborhood along the fence to clear the proposed path.

For now, the border's outdated infrastructure — the San Ysidro port has not grown since it opened in 1974 — can only groan under the traffic.

"Once we open all these lanes, that's it. We're not going to go any faster processing vehicles. We're not going to allow terrorists to come into this country because of the pressure of the wait time," the San Ysidro Port director, Oscar Preciado, said, talking over the rumble of thousands of idling cars and trucks.

Tons of drugs confiscated
Officers at San Ysidro and Otay Mesa now seize more than 40 percent of the marijuana, cocaine and heroin and nearly 80 percent of the methamphetamine captured at U.S.-Mexico border crossings.

They also catch an average of more than 100 illegal immigrants each day — some so desperate to cross they now hide under car hoods, squeezed in with the engine block.

Border officials say they expect to see even more illegal immigrants and drug cargos at the official crossings because the U.S. border fence is being expanded and fortified in areas now commonly used for smuggling.

Dr. Gustavo del Castillo, author of the wait times study, said the delays are a far cry from the "seamless border" once trumpeted by the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

"Now you have a border that's beginning to look like East and West Germany, with razor wire and multiple gates. Mexicans are sort of at a loss, wondering, 'What is happening?' And that's especially the case for those who are used to crossing daily," he said.

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