The Only Way to Walk Across the Border in Five Minutes It is with some reluctance that I write about my recent acquisition of the SENTRI border-crossing card because, well, I got a good thing …

Richard Ruiz, a member of the Xolos, Tijuana’s championship soccer team, has been accused of sexual harassment by a young woman. Joshua Ábrego, a former Xolos team member who was present when the incident allegedly …

The new border station in San Ysidro is nearing completion. Here is a series of photos showing the new station and some of its features.

On January 7, a Texas man wanted on various skipped warrants was apprehended while flipping hamburguesas at a shop in the Tijuana neighborhood of Las Playas. Gilbert Sanchez Jr., 44 years of age and from …

A 28-year-old woman of meager circumstances gave birth to a child in the Tijuana River canal on Monday, December 2. The woman was first observed in a pool of blood. An informant tipped off police …

José Manuel Rodríguez Lozano, 25, was detained last week in Tijuana’s Zona Norte as a presumed member of a group of kidnappers that had been terrorizing people trying to cross the border. According to Tijuana's …

An information center for people deported from the United States was erected at the base of the giant arch in Tijuana earlier this week. The center — located in the historic center of Tijuana, at …

A man was shot to death at Tijuana’s Zona Norte flea market at about 1:30 in the afternoon on October 30. The market, "el sobre ruedas" (“on wheels”), as it is known, is located at …

Ever since the “shutdown” of the U.S. government, maquiladoras have experienced plenty of extra expenditures, including fuel costs, keeping vehicles in “overnight” lots, and fines for delivering merchandise late. Gabriel Merino Fausto, president of a …

“El Bordo,” the area just above the bend of the Tijuana River, was recently cleared of transients by authorities in preparation for routine maintenance; yet, it appears that the throngs of people, mainly male, have …

Expatriate T.B. Beaudeau, a resident of Tijuana, relays tales of others like him; and the stories of those who met tragic/grim ends south of the border.

Baja’s business sector is looking up, according to recent reports in the financial pages of Frontera, which reported earlier in the week that Baja’s business dealings with the U.S. and Baja tallied to $33 billion …

Crossing the border at San Ysidro last week, pedestrians, once inside the U.S. border station building, were greeted by mysterious devices at the head of each line. The devices appeared to be robotic in nature, …

Border-crossing pedestrians coming into San Ysidro witnessed a border-security takedown on August 5, as U.S. agents corralled a man and blasted him with a gaseous substance in order to arrest him. The incident occurred at …

Anyone who has crossed the pedestrian bridge over the Tijuana River next to the newly constructed El Chaparral border station in the past several months has noticed that hundreds of people are living in the …

Earlier this week, dozens of sidewalk vendors (known as comerciantes ambulantes) were banished from the banquetas of downtown Tijuana's Centro Histórico district. The raid on the informal shopkeepers took place on the night of Monday, …

Tijuana's La Segunda newspaper this week offered a report that sanitary meat — be it beef, chicken, or pork — is out of control in Tijuana, devoid of any kind of quality control or review. …

Most elements of the proposed Tijuana Aeropuerto Binacional have been settled and, theoretically, construction could begin in a few weeks. The airport will feature a trans-border facility that will obviate the need for American travelers …

One hundred pesos doesn’t cut it anymore if you want to beat the rap in Tijuana. And 1000 dollars won’t do the job either, as a coyote (human-smuggler) learned this week. The suspect, Leonel Rivera …

The “zonkey,” the zebra-esque black-and-white painted burros seen in several locations along Tijuana’s Avenida Revolución, is a dying breed. Lack of tourism along the route is blamed for the dwindling resources allocated to the creatures. …

Police captured a man who reportedly confessed to murdering a TJ techie after he failed to properly hook up the killer and his four-man crew to the red mundial (internet) in Tijuana. The alleged killer, …

Some 10 percent of prescription and over-the-counter drugs sold in Mexico’s domestic market are believed to be of dubious origin, and, in fact, pirated. This estimate was reported in Tijuana’s daily El Sol de Tijuana …

A hurled Molotov cocktail, a hijacked box of votes, and three individuals posing as journalists while doing some last-minute stumping for their party were reported as the most egregious examples of voting irregularities on election …

Border construction projects by the governments of the U.S. and Mexico were advancing at a rapid clip through the month of June. On the U.S. side, in San Ysidro, the three-story superstructure of the new …

According to a few Baja newspapers, a large loggerhead sea turtle — weighing over 100 pounds and measuring about 96 inches in length and 66 inches in width — was saved from certain demise by …

The warm weather and improved tourist climate have reportedly attracted prostitutes to Rosarito, Ensenada, and Tijuana, according to a recent report in Tijuana’s daily Frontera. The three cities, coastal and vacation-oriented, represent the axis of …

Swimmers and lifeguards at Playas de Tijuana saved a stranded dolphin on the evening of Tuesday, May 14, as it floundered about in the beach shallows. According to 14-year-old beach-goer Azul Garibaldi, the youthful delfin …

A suspected drug dealer was shot to death in a Zona Norte nightclub on Friday, May 3, at around half past noon. The bar, named Malquerida ("bad girlfriend"), on the corner of Constitución and Callejon …

A translation of a front-page headline on Baja’s daily El Mexicano on Tuesday, April 23, reads, "They Might Charge to Cross to the U.S.” beginning in 2014. The story was about the U.S. Department of …

A six-man crew of youthful thieves stole 29 fishing rods valued at $20,000 from a private residence in Ensenada Thursday morning. The stolen rods were considered “pro-level” and were discovered at the group’s encampment in …

“April is the cruelest month…”, begins the first line of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Waste Land,” perhaps more aptly retitled “The Wait Land” for the border region. This April, federal budgetary squabbles and sequestration cuts …

Tijuana police responded to the shouts and pleas for help from an imprisoned, under-aged female at around 3:00 a.m. on Wednesday, March 13. Based on a tip given by a passing stranger, the female was …

Two persons were shot at Tijuana’s Ruta 6 bar on Saturday night, March 9. According to reports in Tijuana's daily Frontera, one of the victims has died, while the other remains hospitalized, status unknown. Gunfire …

Police in Mexicali were given an anonymous tip Thursday night, February 21, that narcotraficantes were delivering drugs from Mexicali, the capital of Baja, to Calexico, across the border. The method used: cannon fire. A home-made …

Upticks in violent events in Tijuana and Mexico have brought a sudden halt to an encouraging rise in medical tourism to Baja, says Dr. Karim Chalita Rodriguez II, president of a medical group known as …

A student attending a private prep school in Ensenada was murdered — reportedly shot at least ten times — on the afternoon of January 24. The recent arrival from Durango, Mexico, was reportedly lured from …

A waiter at a restaurant in the popular and upscale Zona Rio business district was recently busted by TJ police when it was discovered he was cloning patrons’ credit cards. The scam was discovered when …

Long lines and long waits appear to be the daily order at the border this holiday season. Earlier this week, pedestrians stretched back a quarter of a mile; those waiting to cross in cars went …

New rectangular columns of steel rebar sprout into space from a plot of land on the Mexican side of the border at San Ysidro. The columns, easily reaching the height of the multistoried office building …

In the past year, various reinforcement and remodeling efforts have been applied to the old pedestrian bridge crossing the Tijuana River, the quickest and most efficient walking route to downtown Tijuana. The bridge, built decades …

The newly opened border-crossing facility dubbed El Chaparral opened its 22 gates to the full flow of Mexico-bound vehicle traffic on Friday, November 1, and motorists were forced to endure “embotellamientos” (traffic jams) in various …

A Tijuana citizens group, Los Integrantes de la Coalición Pro Puerta México (Coalition for the Port of Mexico) met in Plaza Viva Tijuana a few days ago to petition for the permanent opening of the …

El Chaparral, Mexico’s new port of entry adjacent to San Ysidro, opened yesterday, October 24, on a test basis, with a connecter road running along the Mexican-side border fence from Interstate 5 heading west to …

A major power outage struck Baja on the afternoon of October 12, knocking out electrical power in Tijuana, Rosarito, Ensenada, and San Felipe. A CFE (Comisión Federal de Electricidad) press bulletin stated that some 760,000 …

For decades, Tijuana’s Taxis Amarillos (Yellow Cab) franchise lot was located a few hundred feet from its greatest source of customers, just north of the U.S. border entryway into Mexico. Thousands of potential clientes every …

The new way to walk into Mexico via the San Ysidro route turns out to be pretty simple if one just follows instructions. No less than six bilingual women wearing red, short-sleeved polo shirts are …

Pedicabs experience a surge of popularity in downtown Tijuana.

Banners were hung about various pedestrian pathways into Mexico, warning border crossers that a change was going to come. On September 24, pedestrians were re-routed from the long-familiar spinning gates located on the west side …

Whether it will be used as a traffic route or just a utility road between the old Mexican border station and the new one (now under construction) is open to conjecture, but a new road …

Storm drains that lead to the Tijuana River estuary outlet just north of the pedestrian bridge (alongside the construction of the Chaparral border-crossing station) have recently emitted effluent known as aguas negras (“black waters”). Within …