Today, the San Diego/Tijuana border region is one of the busiest border crossing in the world. Over 56.6 million people crossed the border in 2002, accounting for 17.2% of all land crossings in the United States.10 An estimated 150,000 California residents and some 40,000 trans-border Mexican residents make their way across the border each day, for jobs, school, housing, medical care, shopping, cultural enrichment, or to see family and friends.11 According to a survey by San Diego’s South County Economic Development Council (SCEDC), 14% of South County employers responded that over 61% of their employees reside south of the border in Baja California.12 For these crossers, the border is increasingly becoming a blur.

According to Mexico’s 2000 Census data, 27,386 residents of Tijuana and Rosarito self-reported that their primary place of employment is the United States.13 Some of Baja California’s cross-border commuters are Mexican nationals with U.S. citizenship or authorized papers to legally cross each day to work or go to school. Others are U.S. families or retirees on fixed income pensions or restricted incomes that compel them to live in Mexico to maintain a decent quality of life. It is worth noting that the U.S. Consulate-Tijuana has a total of 196,000 Americans officially recorded as living in its Consular District (either full time or part time in an area that includes the entire Baja California peninsula) and many of these individuals are part of the cross-border commuter population.14

Contrary to the stereotypical image of immigrants to the United States, the Mexican Census of 2000 shows that the Mexican trans-border residents who maintain their home in Tijuana or Rosarito and work in the U.S. have a relatively high level of educational attainment. More than two-thirds of these trans-border residents have a junior high school or higher education, and 40% of Mexican men and 47.5% of women who work in the U.S. have high school or higher levels of education. Over 70% use private health services as opposed to Mexico’s public sector health services. Another interesting fact is the level of homeownership among those Mexican nationals living in Tijuana and Rosarito but working in the United States. Their level of homeownership is relatively high with 72.6% of men and 79.6% of females owning homes, appreciatively higher than those remaining to work in Baja California (67.1% for men; 68.2% for women).16 In this sense, the proximity to the border and the ability to earn a living in the United States provides many Baja California residents, including a growing number of former San Diego residents, with a strategic advantage over other Mexican nationals and San Diego County’s non-homeowners that are unable or unwilling to cross.