Tijuana's bus terminal bustles with immigrants at holiday time
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=260700&Category=24
December 28, 2005
Leslie Berestein
TIJUANA, Mexico - Miguel Garcia stood dwarfed by boxes, a roll of packing tape dangling from his wrist like a bracelet. He guarded his mound of
cardboard packages and bags of luggage as his brother and cousin stood in line to buy tickets for the afternoon bus to Irapuato.
They planned to emerge 40 hours later in their central Mexican hometown, sleep-deprived Santa Clauses from the north laden with gifts for their
waiting families.
"These here are toys, some new, some used," said Garcia, 34, a Temecula, Calif., landscaper, pointing first to a box as he walked around the pile,
then to a large black plastic bag. "Over here are stuffed animals."
There were clothes, too, and more toys. The bounty will go to his children, his nieces and nephews, his cousins and his wife, who is waiting for a
visa to join him in the United States and whom he only gets to see about twice a year, when he makes the long trip back.
Garcia is one of at least 1.2 million immigrants who Mexican officials expect will make their way back this holiday season to their hometowns. Many
choose to drive; others save wear on their cars and wallets by traveling from Tijuana by bus.
The week before Christmas is the busiest week of the year at Tijuana's central bus terminal, where officials estimate that more than 5,000 people a
day are passing through its doors, standing in line at its ticket counters - some for four or five hours - and climbing onto southbound buses for
trips that can take up to two days.
Many passengers are Tijuana residents, but the majority, terminal officials say, are Mexicans who live in Southern California, some from as far away
as Los Angeles.
This week is also the heaviest week of the year in terms of sheer tons of luggage passing through the terminal. Travelers stuff multiple suitcases,
boxes, even plastic trash bags with gifts and everyday necessities for relatives they help support with remittances, yet seldom get to deliver their
gifts to in person.
Last week, when Garcia was getting ready to leave with his mountain of boxes, buses were leaving the station carrying approximately 7,000 pounds of
luggage, said Raymundo Herrera, director of traffic operations for the terminal. This is roughly three times the norm.
This week, he said, passengers are limited to about 110 pounds per person, but "we can't weigh it," Herrera said. "There are too many people."
Additional long-distance buses have been scheduled to depart this week, but there is still not enough room for everyone who wants a ticket, let alone
for gifts. Some travelers who bring too much luggage will have to check it at the station if they want to board, said Irene Lopez, a desk clerk for
Transportes del Pacifico, whose buses travel as far as Mexico City.
"There is nowhere to put it," she said. "They'll have to go home or leave it here."
In spite of its inconveniences and discomforts, traveling by bus is much cheaper than driving back. According to the Mexican consulate in San Diego,
which recently stayed open on a Saturday to process the necessary paperwork for holiday travelers, those who drive will pay not only for fuel but also
a $27 fee to temporarily "import" their cars from the United States.
They must also pay deposits as high as $400 to ensure that they will not leave their cars in Mexico to be sold.
For the passengers standing in line at the bus station contemplating long, cramped journeys, the idea of spending the holidays with their families is
consolation enough.
"I can spend Christmas and New Year's with my mother and grandmother," said Mariluz Card##as, 35, a Tijuana seamstress traveling home to Guadalajara
with her teenage daughter and half a dozen suitcases. "I'm looking forward to the posadas, the dinners, the pinatas."
The family reunion will include her uncle and her 18-year-old son, who are traveling from Texas. At more than $100 for a ticket, she can only afford
one trip home a year, she said. But after 13 years of living far away, just being able to see everyone together again justifies the expense, she said,
as it does the 36 hours it will take her to get there.
"We'll arrive very, very tired," Card##as said. "But it's worth it."
Most of the Mexican immigrants who travel home from the U.S. these days are people who can legally travel back and forth, said Wayne Cornelius,
director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California San Diego.
Tighter border enforcement in recent years has made crossing illegally so costly and dangerous that many people without visas are reluctant to leave
once here, he said, even to be reunited with their families.
"There are still some who do it without papers, but they are mostly single males," Cornelius said. "It's just not something that can be done casually
any longer."
Seventy-seven percent of undocumented Mexican immigrants interviewed as part of a recent UCSD study cited the danger, cost and difficulty of crossing
illegally as a reason for returning home less frequently in the past five years. A Mexican government survey of holiday travelers showed undocumented
immigrants to be a minority among those who went home last year.
Illegal immigration picks up along the Southwest border in January after a lull in December, typically the Border Patrol's slowest month. Incidents of
people smuggled across in cars also pick up after Jan. 6, Three Kings Day. But all of these aren't necessarily returning travelers, said Border Patrol
spokesman Todd Fraser.
"I don't know if they are coming back, or if they are just coming," Fraser said. "Maybe they just had a nice holiday with their families, and now will
try to make the journey."
Early January is also when the bus travelers and drivers returning to Southern California will make their way back to Tijuana, head to the ports of
entry and, once again, wait in long lines to cross the border back to their adopted home. Holiday and post-holiday waits at the border can easily
exceed an hour, according to customs officials.
But this time, the returning immigrants will wait in line with fuller hearts, and lighter luggage.
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