Opinion: Otay Mesa East Port of Entry project isn't remotely the relief that's needed at the border

, less than 10 of the 34 northbound lanes at the Port of Entry are staffed and open. Given the toll this is taking on the region’s binational economy and on its annual GDP of $250 billion, this is astounding and unacceptable. The Biden administration blames staffing shortages when it acknowledges the problem at all. It is simply perverse that the result is not far from what Donald Trump hoped to achieve with a border wall.

Yet the bad news may only be growing. Despite a visit by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to the local border on Friday — one in which he talked up federal infrastructure investments in the new, 10-lane Otay Mesa East Port of Entry — the project isn’t the long-awaited relief the region requires. Expected to open in 2024, Otay Mesa East is depicted as a godsend that will offer average crossing times from five to 25 minutes for passenger vehicles and 15 to 45 minutes for freight traffic.

to crossing vehicles, using a variable price system based on traffic volume, and split the revenue evenly. Charging for use is how authorities will limit vehicles and assure quicker crossings.The project amounts to governments cashing in on their incompetent border stewardship — and quite possibly incentivizing even more of it.

Unfortunately, even more border headaches are possible. In a Wednesday interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Thomas Shannon — afor 34 years and a former undersecretary of state with vast experience in Latin America — said he believes Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador won’t hesitate to take steps that might make border delays worse if he thinks it will help him score points with Mexican voters.

Given the emergence of the San Diego-Tijuana megaregion as one of the planet’s great economic engines, the goal should be policies that “connect, not complicate” border passage, as Shannon told us. On the U.S. end, the simplest first step toward that goal would be for the president and Congress to beef up staffing at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.

This is a joke. Millions spent for lanes that were never intended to be staffed. Now Mexican police with machine guns are pre-asking for your papers before you see a U.S. official. This crossing will be more of a fiasco.

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