SAN DIEGO — San Diego and Tijuana are growing more interconnected every day. New cross-border businesses are booming, tourism is gaining steam, and thousands and thousands of people wake up south of the border, to go to work every day to the north of it.
In the middle of it all is San Diego’s Mexican Consul General, Carlos González Gutiérrez. CBS 8’s Carlo Cecchetto sat down with him for a long interview at the consulate recently and asked González Gutiérrez why he’s excited about the region’s future as well as about deep-rooted problems that still have major hurdles to overcome.
González Gutiérrez has been a Consul General three times. His first appointment was in Sacramento where he served six years. His last post, before San Diego, was in Austin, Texas. The ambassador was installed in San Diego in mid-2019.
San Diego’s Mexican Consulate is in Little Italy, on India Street. The facility provides a wide variety of services for Mexican Nationals living in San Diego. Everything from COVID tests and vaccine clinics to passports and birth certificates to legal help.
González Gutiérrez role is a critical one, supporting at least 200,000 Mexican Nationals living in San Diego County, almost half of whom are likely undocumented, “my main job is to protect the rights and the interests of Mexicans who live in the county of San Diego.”
While many in San Diego may be undocumented, he says that doesn’t mean they aren’t an important part of the community, “the vast majority of those people have established roots in this country and have been living in this country for more than ten years on average.”
He’s frustrated with a situation that sees undocumented Mexican Nationals living and working in the United States left in legal limbo and would like to see the U.S. modernize its immigration processes.
While there are problems on the immigration front, the Consul General says he’s very encouraged by the cooperation seen along this stretch of border, “I have never seen a binational region as integrated as San Diego and Tijuana.”
A recent study by the University of San Diego pins the value of the so-called “Cali-Baja” regional economy at about 250 billion dollars, with San Diego’s booming Biotechnology industry creating great opportunities on both sides of the border. González Gutiérrez says they have highly trained scientists and experts living in Baja who can conduct research and lead production.
He also points to regional innovations like the new Cross Border Express to the Tijuana International Airport and the SENTRI pass, which makes it easier for the tens of thousands who live in Baja, but come to work in San Diego every day.
EXTENDED INTERVIEW | PART 1: Mexican Consul General in San Diego
Growth does bring its own set of issues, including the gentrification of Tijuana, pushed a great deal by Mexican Nationals and even US citizens looking for a lower cost of living south of the border.
González Gutiérrez says the number one issue he deals with, every day, is the cross-border pollution problem triggered by sewage flowing from Tijuana into the ocean, shutting down San Diego beaches, “the lack of working sanitation infrastructure in Tijuana, a city that grows very fast, is at the heart of the problem. But Mexico is investing resources, our own resources, Mexican taxpayer resources, in order to fix that.”
While the Consul General laments some of the political rhetoric aimed at Mexican migrants, he isn’t overly discouraged by them. He says Baja is thriving, with great food, breweries and wineries and just hopes more San Diegans, many who have either never been to Tijuana, or just haven’t been there in more than a decade, decide to come down soon for a visit.
EXTENDED INTERVIEW | PART 2: Mexican Consul General in San Diego