Editorial:
Editor’s Note: This past weekend La Prensa San Diego editor, Daniel Munoz, had the opportunity to speak before The Congressional Black Caucus Institute’s “21st Century Council” about the border, immigration and transportation. The following is an abbreviated version of the presentation. The focus of the meeting in general was: a consensus on how we implement fresh approaches and innovative ideas for solving the United States most basic problems in the 21st century.
Riding the trolley on my way to this event it occurred to me that in achieving the goals of this week’s meetings, the answer lies here in this room among us, between the black community and the Hispanic community. No one else is going to solve our problems and our problems are many. Take a look at any negative barometer that gages a society and there you find the black and brown communities: education, employment, health.
No one is going to solve these problems for us. Let me give you an example. When Ward Connerly initiated and led the dismantling of Affirmative Action in California, the local General Contractors Association in San Diego filed suit in San Diego to eliminate affirmative action in the awarding contracts. Mind you the city was only awarding approximately 10 to 12 percent of the contracts to minorities.
Last year it was reported that less than one percent of the City of San Diego contracts were going to minority contractors.
As stated we can’t look to others to solve the problems that we face today and in the future. The answers have to come from us, from us working together.
As a member of the Board of Directors for the Neighborhood House, your host for this week’s events, I had the opportunity to preview the scheduled trip to the San Ysidro Border, visiting the immigration facilities, DHS operation and border fence and I was a bit perturbed by the description of the trip and felt that there was a great need for a balanced view, a Hispanic perspective to the border and the immigration issue. I was perturbed at how the issue of immigration had been siphoned down to the singular issue of border enforcement/law enforcement.
With immigration next year’s major policy initiative for the White House and congress I thought it was important to provide a whole perspective to this important issue.
As it turned out there was no panel on Immigration but they did offer me the opportunity to speak on transportation and infrastructure! I wasn’t about to turn this opportunity down, transportation and infrastructure are important issues and immigration is a part of this discussion.
The San Ysidro border crossing is the busiest border crossing in the world; last year 50 million people entered the U.S. through this port. The United States has 326 official Ports-of-Entries through which each day more than 1.1 million (401.5 million annually.) travelers enter or re-enter, including 327,000 cars (119.4 million annually.) and more than 18,000 commercial trucks (17.1 million annually.)
According to Scarborough and Chamber of Commerce studies, our Mexican neighbors spend $40 billion total annual dollars in their cross-border travels. Most cross-border visitors from Mexico come to shop, spending $110 to $160 per trip. For retailers this breaks down to 18-20 million Mexicans who visit every month, representing $25-30 million in daily retail sales along the U.S. border during normal times of the year. In San Diego, this means $10 billion in annual retail sales. Cross-border shoppers from Tijuana spend $500-$600 per household during the Christmas season.
Immigration and the border is about jobs, it is about the economy, it is about community, people, and families. Yet the border has been reduced to the singular issue of border control, to quote the right wing sentiment of our society “in stopping the brown tide.”
As a part of the border visit you got to see the border fence. The 670 mile fence at a cost of 7.5 million dollars per mile and that does not include the virtue fence that still needs to be added. Then, there is the cost of upkeep which is projected at 6.5 billion over the next 20 years.
If this border fence was solely about border security, national security, stopping illegal immigration, and about stopping the drug trade – then we would see a border fence along the northern border. All these issues impact the Canadian border equally. But you don’t. You don’t even see a chain link fence. It wasn’t until after 9/11, did the border patrol to the north stop the practice of calling it a night at midnight, which left the border open to travelers. No, the border fence is in response to the growing Hispanic community and stands as a symbol to the xenophobic fear and as to how I, a Hispanic, am perceived.
While I agree and I believe — as does all most all of the Hispanic community believes – is that the United States has the obligation and right to secure their borders and to control immigration. The approach that we see being taken to this task is an affront to the Hispanic community, it is a statement, a police reaction to what is essentially a jobs issue, economic issue, a human rights issue.
Kelly Cunningham, senior fellow and economist for the San Diego Institute for Policy Research, says Mexico and Baja California combine to be, by far, the biggest San Diego trading partner. When Baja stops spending, San Diego retailers notice. Visiting Baja Californians contribute more than $3 billion annually to San Diego’s economy, the equivalent of six Super Bowls. When the cross border traffic slows down, or comes to a near stop as it did after 9/11 —worst case secenario— the community of San Ysidro becomes a ghost town and San Diego business go into recession.
What we have at the border is an inadequate infrastructure capacity, which is failing to keep up with the increase in trade and security requirements. At the principal border crossings between San Diego County and Baja California traffic congestion and delays costs the U.S. and Mexican economies an estimated $6 billion in gross output in estimated for 2005. Fully 51,325 jobs are sacrificed because of the reduction in output. This means that we need to find ways to build greater bonds, relationships, and infrastructure that meets the needs of national security, immigration, and facilitates cross border traffic.
Steps have recently been taken to address these needs.
Recently in order to “Build on Cooperative Efforts to Create a More Vibrant Economy,” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Baja California Governor José Guadalupe Osuna Millán signed a Memorandum of Understanding to continue to build upon their cooperative efforts in the California-Baja California border region.
Specifically in the agreement, they commit both states to work together in the areas of economic development, commerce, tourism, environmental protection, border crossings, security and civil protection, health, renewable energy and agriculture.
Schwarzenneger stated: “Our common border makes us more than just neighbors; it makes us partners in working together to improve the lives of all border residents.”
The 21st Century will not be an open border but it will be a border that recognizes the inter-dependency of the two countries, immigration as a jobs issue, as a human rights issue, and not solely as a law enforcement effort. The border region will be recognized for the contributions of economic impact of the Hispanic and Mexican communities.
The border fence is not yet completed, yet as we look into the future it is already, politically speaking, obsolete. As the Hispanic community continues to grow and as it becomes an increasingly stronger political voice the jingoistic/xenophobic voices that have been the driving forces behind immigration issue will over time dissipate and a new vision, a new attitude, and new solutions for the border and immigration will be forthcoming.
This will be the 21st century with a holistic look at the issue of the border and immigration.