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Tijuana faces possible business loss with passport rules
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2005...
By GWENDOLYN DRISCOLL
May 1, 2005
TIJUANA, Mexico - Erica Johnson knows exactly what she'll do if required to get a U.S. passport to visit Tijuana.
"I don't have a passport, so that's easy," said Johnson, 23, an immunology graduate student from Atlanta, as she perused a jewelry shop on the main
tourist strip, Avenida Revolucion. "I would think that the average American doesn't have a passport either."
Like many travelers to this most visited of border towns along the U.S.-Mexico frontier, Johnson came to Tijuana to satisfy a spontaneous whim more
than a calculated desire. And given the "hassle" of filling out an application, paying the $97 fee and waiting the six to eight weeks to get a U.S.
passport - all in order to visit the neon-lit Animale Club or the dank and smelly El Torito Pub in Tijuana - Johnson said she might choose to spend
her day off from a San Diego conference elsewhere.
Tijuana, after all, is not Paris. The city is a tourist destination because of proximity to the popular convention city of San Diego, and its ease of
access - currently U.S. citizens need flash only a driver's license to cross the border.
All that will change in 2008, if proposed rules go into effect requiring U.S. citizens to carry passports to travel into Mexico and Canada. And the
easy-come, easy-go attitude of casual visitors like Johnson is a worry to some in Tijuana's business community, whose shops, restaurants, clubs, and
low-cost pharmacies depend largely on U.S. tourism.
"In principle it could affect us," said Miguel Santacruz, the manager of Ivan's Curio Shop on Avenida Revolucion. "It will make it more of a problem
for Americans to come to Tijuana."
Less than one-fourth of the United States' 295 million citizens possess a passport, according to the U.S. Department of State. And some experts worry
that the time-consuming procedure to acquire one might reduce the kind of spontaneous shop-and-party trips for which the city is known.
"If I'm a college student and I want to go to Tijuana for the evening, I'm probably not going to get a passport to do that," said Howard Shatz of the
California Public Policy Institute. "(The new passport requirement) might cut into some leisure travel to Mexico."
U.S. citizens crossed the Mexico-California border more than 40 million times in 2004, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency. Up
to 60 percent of those U.S. citizens visited Mexico primarily to shop, according to a not-yet-published study by the San Diego Association of
Governments. That 60 percent, according to the association's chief economist, Marney Cox, is the "most sensitive" to any disincentive to travel the
new passport requirement might present.
"Anytime you make things more difficult then yes, there's going to be an economic impact," said Cox.
The study found that 50 percent of U.S. visitors to Mexico were likely to stay home if there were significant impediments to crossing the border, such
as longer wait times.
The paperwork, time and money involved in securing a U.S. passport might present a similar impediment, Cox said.
"From the perspective of facilitating people and goods across the border, it will limit people more," he said.
Mexican officials said they did not believe the new rules would affect tourism.
U.S. customs officials said the process of applying for a passport was not difficult and would ultimately result in a more efficient border.
"It's going to speed processing because you're going to have a more secure document, a more uniform document, and you'll have a document less subject
to fraud," said Vincent Bond, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency.
Amin David, president of the Anaheim, Calif.-based Los Amigos advocacy group, said U.S. citizens with family ties across the border would be hard hit
by the "weighty" bureaucracy and cost of acquiring a passport.
"It's going to cause a lot of consternation," David said. "It makes things quite complicated, quite cumbersome ... for (Mexican-Americans) many of
whom do not have a U.S. passport because it's so natural for us to travel into Mexico without one."
The livelihood of Tijuana's estimated 1.5 million to 2.3 million people is closely intertwined with the "twin economy" of San Diego, and more broadly,
Southern California. Up to 55,000 cars and 35,000 pedestrians cross the San Ysidro gate each day. Many are U.S. tourists. Many more are Mexican
citizens seeking work in San Diego or Orange County, or Mexican-Americans visiting relatives in Mexico. About 25 percent of Orange County's 2.8
million residents are of Mexican extraction.
Merchants on Avenida Revolucion and in the shopping plaza of more than 30 pharmacies wedged next to the San Ysidro gate said Mexico's cheaper prices
would provide motivation to get a passport, particularly for older Americans who come in search of medication that is roughly 20 to 40 percent cheaper
than in the United States.
"It's still cheaper to get a passport than to pay hundreds of dollars more in the States for drugs," said Juan Perez, a greeter at the Farmacias
Milenio pharmacy on Avenida Jose Maria Larroque. Perez estimated that about 60 percent of the pharmacy's business came from U.S. citizens.
Roberto Trujillo, a U.S. resident whose three children live in Anaheim but who works part-time as a taxi driver in Tijuana, said Mexicans with green
cards or uncertain residency status in the United States would be more affected by the new rules and fearful of appearing in person at passport
application facilities.
"It won't affect Americans," said Trujillo. "But Mexicans who aren't able to get passports aren't going to come back to Mexico as much."
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The fear industry is the one bright spot on our economic horizon.
Who were the only two groups of college grads with starting salaries above inflation?
Aerospace, and marketing; weapons, and those who sell them.
DHS = $40Billion/year paper-pushers who coordinate, oversee, regulate, manage, supervise...
When people are willing to die to attack you, there's not a whole lot you can Effectively do about it. Heaven forbid we should address why.
It's been a whole six months. We're about due for a TERRA! alert. 
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