Mexico’s new border inspection system has business leaders worried

TIJUANA — A proposed Mexican program at the U.S.-Mexico border designed to reduce smuggling of illegal items such as weapons, cash, and drugs from the U.S. into Mexico has created concern in the business community that the new inspection procedures will have an additional economic impact on already long border crossing wait times.

Although the program has not begun to operate, the new infrastructure, especially at the San Ysidro border crossing also known as Puerta Mexico, has created traffic delays and two-hour waiting lines for vehicles heading into Tijuana.

SIAVE, intended to work at all Mexico border crossings, will record the plate numbers, and type, model, brand and weight of each vehicle, along with an image of the passengers in each one.

Although an exact start date is not yet set, officials hope it will be operational by next year. (SIAVE is a Spanish acronym for “system of vehicle control.”)

One of the goals of the program is to avoid the traffic of illegal items into Mexico by having a better control of the risk from suspicious vehicles at the border.

“Before we didn’t have this program, it was just a random system; there was no electronic record about the cars,” said Carlos Ramirez, administrator for Mexican Customs in Tijuana.

The SIAVE process begins with two cameras that read license plate numbers of vehicles entering Mexico. Vehicles are then weighed on scales, and finally head to the scanner for the vehicle profile. A light will indicate if the vehicle needs to go to a secondary inspection; otherwise, a gate will go up to let the car go through.

This procedure would take between 10 and 15 seconds for each car at San Ysidro, the most transited port of entry in the entire country, with more than 40,000 vehicles each day and only seven exit lanes.

Tijuana city councilman Gerardo Alvarez believes that the Tijuana-San Diego region is unique along the Mexico-U.S. border, and that the SIAVE program will affect economic development and tourism in the area.

“We need adjustments. We are a border very different to the rest of the country,” Alvarez said. “We need another kind of technology and other schemes because although we are looking for security, we are letting in other risk factors.”

To accommodate these concerns, the private sector and local authorities are seeking faster alternatives to SIAVE.

One possible solution Baja California and local Chambers of Commerce presented to Mexico President Felipe Calderon in a recent visit was to accelerate the construction of a new port of entry, located just west from San Ysidro in the area called “El Chaparral.” It is currently set for completion in 2013.

“We will always be in favor of any programs that look to stop contraband, but our authorities must become aware that Tijuana has a different border and that this delays will affect severely to our economy and the commercial and tourism exchange,” said Mario Escobedo from the Mexico National Chamber of Commerce.

Escobedo estimates that once the SIAVE program takes effect, the region could have economic losses that might be calculated by billions to both countries.

Others that are affected by the new program are the residents who live and work or study on different sides of the border.

Fernando Otañez from the Business Coordinated Council (Consejo Coordinador Empresarial, in Spanish) hopes that the extra lanes that come with El Chaparral will be the solution for long wait times.

“Once we have a new structure with 20 exit lanes, our authorities are going to be ready to do all the inspections that they want,” he said.

Otañez estimates that more than 40,000 Tijuana residents work in San Diego and more cross the border every day to shop or go to school.

Based on a study conducted by the agency, 82 percent of the people that cross the San Ysidro port of entry into the U.S. come back to Mexico the same day.

“This is a very intense dynamic and the SIAVE will affect all of us, by affecting our time we reach our work and our families,” Otañez said.

In the next few weeks, local business leaders will present a new study on effects SIAVE may generate. They also expect to receive the presidential decree to start construction of the “El Chaparral” project.

Tania Navarro is an SDNN contributing writer who reports from Tijuana.

Tags: Mexican Border, Puerta Mexico, San Ysidro, SDNN, SIAVE

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