Blurred Borders - International Community Foundation

in 2005; and 390,000 to 439,000 in 2010 based on varying estimates of Mexican GDP growth,
unemployment, the US-Mexico wage ratio, and migrant remittances. 36
Absent major overhauls in U.S. immigration policy or a significant improvement in the Mexican
economy, it is very likely that San Diego County will continue to receive a proportionate share
of migrants from Mexico. It should be noted, however, that of those Mexican migrants arriving
to cross the border into the United States between 1993 and 2001, a mere 1.6% indicated that
their final destination was San Diego. Among those migrants interviewed in Tijuana, over 22.5%
indicated that they were proceeding on to other destinations in California, and the remainder,
well over 76.1%, was seeking to proceed on to other states in the United States. In this sense,
the challenges of migration facing San Diego and Tijuana are shared among communities across
the heartland of America. 37
It should be emphasized that the impacts of human migration are binational. After all, over 43%
of migrants that arrive in Tijuana ultimately settle there, making it one of the fastest-growing
municipalities in the Republic of Mexico. According to studies by the Colegio de la Frontera
Norte and Mexico’s 2000 Census, a mere 39.7% of Tijuana’s population are natives of the
region as compared to Mexicali where over 60% originate from that community. The majority
of Tijuana’s residents are migrants from other parts of Mexico and a small percentage is from
third countries. In fact, Baja California’s net migration was the highest of any state in the
Republic of Mexico with a growth rate of over 8.47% of the past decade. 38
The number of fatalities has been growing among those attempting to cross. Between 1993 and
1997 a total of 294 undocumented migrant workers died trying to cross the border between
San Diego County and Baja California. This represents over 28% of the total migrant deaths
during that time period, or 1034 fatalities 39 . Over the past ten years, over 2,600 undocumented
migrants have perished along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. INS’s tightened border
enforcement attributed to Operation Gatekeeper has reduced the number of migrant-related
fatalities in San Diego County, but it has not eliminated the problem of migrant deaths. In fact,
this problem has worsened. Sadly, the problem has also been shifted to less patrolled but more
dangerous regions of the border in the deserts of Imperial Valley and Southern Arizona.
According to Wayne Cornelius of UCSD’s Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, “As
we have ‘squeezed the balloon’ in the urbanized San Diego County and El Paso areas, the
border has bulged in central Arizona and southern Texas.” 40 Until steps are taken to reduce
the levels of extreme poverty in the migrant-sending regions of Mexico and Central America,
or steps are taken to reform U.S. immigration policy, the death toll can be expected to rise.
36 Cornelius, Wayne, P. 293
37 Alarcon, Rafael, Anguiano, Maria Eugenia, “Migration Flows and the Labor Market in Tijuana: Impacts on San
Diego County,” Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Presented at the workshop, “Ties that Bind Us: Mexican Migrant
Community in San Diego,” at the University of California, San Diego, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, November
14, 2003,
38 INEGI, 2000, State of Baja California statistical indices.
39 Karl Eshbach, “Death at the Border,” International Migration Review, Vol.. 33, No. 2, Summer 1999.
40 Dr. Wayne Cornelius, “Evaluating U.S. Immigration Control Strategies, 1993-2003,” Lecture delivered at the
Trans-Border Institute, University of San Diego, October 16, 2003, page 4.
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