"More than economic resources, political will is what is required from the U.S. government to solve the border crossing problem," said the Mayor of Tijuana, Carlos Bustamante Anchondo, who along with his counterpart from San Diego, Bob Filner, led the 8th. Annual San Diego & Baja California (Mexico Mission) meeting in Mexico City.

Bustamante, who is also president of the Association of Mayors of the Northern Border, said that urgent actions is what's needed to solve the problem of the inspection booths, where it sometimes takes people between 3 to 4 hours to cross, which means huge losses, more pollution and an impact on productivity.

He noted that in coordination with the City of San Diego, CA, they conducted an exercise that included additional CBP agents in 2 crossings, which resulted in a time of 15 minutes less in the crossing process, and "shows that everything is a matter of political will," said Carlos Bustamante.

"U.S. authorities consider that having long lines at checkpoints is safe. However, this is not so, as it is proven that enhanced security is more efficient," said the mayor of Tijuana.

The border crossing problem was one of the issues discussed in the meetings that were held with members of the San Diego-Tijuana delegation, who met Tuesday with officials from the Ministry of Economy, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Commercial Trade agency.

Meanwhile, the Mayor of San Diego, Bob Filner, pointed out that they have recently set up an office in Tijuana, in order to maintain the bonds of friendship and cooperation between these two cities.

Filner also said that as part of the cooperation between the two cities, they are proposing for a trilateral summit Mexico-Canada-United States next time, which will take place in the cities of San Diego and Tijuana. He also commented that they will be placing a bid for the 2024 Olympics, so these two cities can be the venue for this event and for the first time in history have a "binational Olympic games".

Editorial@sandiegored.com

Omar.Martinez@sandiegored.com