SAN DIEGO — The San Ysidro border alone sees more than 70,000 cars and 25,000 pedestrians cross into the United States every day – including thousands of workers who help support the regional economy estimated at $255 billion a year.
For those thousands of workers, like Andrea Schafer, the threat of a border shutdown has created widespread anxiety.
For more than four years, Schafer has been commuting from her home just north of Rosarito, Mexico t o her job as senior human resource manger at a high-tech company in Kearny Mesa.
“Sometimes it is stressful because you are spending an hour-and-a-half to two hours in the car, but you have to look at the benefits,” she said.
Those benefits include a much lower cost of living and bilingual education for her daughter.
The president’s repeated threats throughout the past week to shut down the border, however, have taken their toll on her and thousands of other workers who make the international trek every day.
“You have to take it one day at a time. Uncertainty that you won’t know until you get there,” she said.
The president of the United States put the brakes, at least for a while, on his threatened border shutdown by giving Mexico a one-year warning.
On Wednesday, the president instead threatened to slap massive tariffs – including a 25% tax on automobiles if Mexico does not crack down on drugs coming into the United States.
Economic experts said the lingering long-term threat of a border shutdown could prove even more detrimental to the bi-national economy estimated at $600 billion a year.
If a shutdown were to eventually happen, Alan Gin – who is an economics professor at the University of San Diego – said it would have serious impacts.
While Schafer is relieved that a complete border closure is apparently not imminent, it is still hard not to worry about it.
The president will be in California on Friday with stops in Calexico to visit a remodeled section of an already existing border wall before heading to Los Angeles for a fundraiser.