Businesses Ask 3rd Crossing at Busy Border : Immigration: New amnesty provisions in U.S. law have increased the number of legal crossings, causing even longer delays at the border.

The amnesty provisions of U.S. immigration law have resulted in heavily increased legal traffic--both in vehicles and on foot--between the United States and Mexico, highlighting the need for a third international border crossing in the San Diego-Tijuana area, business leaders from the two cities said Tuesday.

“I predict we’re going to strangle on our traffic within a decade without another crossing,” said Dal L. Watkins, president of the San Diego Convention & Visitors Bureau, a city promotional organization.

“From our perspective, we’re definitely going to need it,” said William Yu, who heads the Tijuana convention bureau.

The two were among a dozen or so business leaders from both cities who met Tuesday in San Diego to discuss the issue of border backups. There was widespread consensus on the need for a third crossing to alleviate traffic delays, which have always plagued border crossings but now routinely result in waits of an hour or more before vehicles can enter U.S. inspection lanes.

However, officials acknowledged that construction of such a facility is far in the future--at least five years. It would require a large investment by both nations and would need the approval of policy-makers both in Washington and Mexico City.

U.S. authorities have traced the recent sharp increases in traffic at the border largely to the amnesty provisions of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, a law that represented the most sweeping revisions in U.S. immigration policy in more than three decades.

Ironically, there is considerable doubt as to whether the landmark changes have achieved lawmakers’ primary goal: stemming illegal entries from Mexico.

But there is no question that the law has had the unintended and unanticipated effect of increasing legal crossings between the two nations. The amnesty program provided temporary residence status to more than 3 million formerly undocumented immigrants, most of them citizens of Mexico, who are now free to legally travel back and forth across the border.

That change, U.S. officials say, contributed to the fact that legal crossings via the five California ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border increased by 21% in the most recent fiscal year, to some 89.5 million--almost a quarter-million a day. About half of all amnesty recipients reside in California.

Those increases, according to business leaders on both sides of the border, are vividly evident in the ever-increasing lines of traffic waiting on the Mexican side to enter the United States. The vehicles must go through U.S. inspection before entering the country.

The delays have gotten worse in the past two years, tourism officials say. Waits of an hour or more before entering the United States are now commonplace, and, on holiday weekends such as July 4th and Labor Day, delays of up to three hours are not unusual.

Throughout the U.S.-Mexico border region, which stretches for almost 2,000 miles, such delays are seen as more than just an inconvenience. Tourism and international commerce constitute the lifeblood of the area; any impediment in the massive daily movement of humanity is seen as a potential threat to the region’s delicate economy.

Many visitors to San Diego are attracted in part by the city’s proximity to Mexico. And many industries have set up shop in Tijuana specifically because of its nearness to the international line.

“We’re interdependent,” said Watkins of ConVis.

There are currently two international crossings between San Diego and Tijuana: The giant facility at San Ysidro, called the busiest border crossing in the world, and the smaller, mostly commercial port at Otay Mesa, about 10 miles to the east, which has been in operation for less than a decade.

Congress recently began to react to the problem. Earlier this year, a congressional panel directed the U.S. General Services Administration and U.S. Customs Service to study the feasibility of a third crossing in the area.

Where a new facility would be built remains a question mark. One possibility mentioned is along the coast between the two cities. However, there could be numerous hurdles, among them environmental problems: The U.S. side of the border along the coast includes several federally protected water habitats, including the estuary of the Tijuana River, home of a number of endangered birds.

Since a new border facility is still far in the future, officials and others have noted the need to look to other, shorter-term alternatives. One is to expand the Otay Mesa crossing, which, unlike San Ysidro, is not open 24 hours a day.

“Before we jump on a third port of entry, we’d like to see Otay Mesa utilized to its fullest extent,” said Clifton Rogers, deputy district director in San Diego for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Border businessmen, meantime, would like to see expanded staffing of inspection booths at San Ysidro. All 24 lanes at the crossing are only open infrequently, much to the dissatisfaction of area chambers of commerce. Opening more lanes would clearly speed traffic.

However, U.S. officials say they are hamstrung by staff shortages. “We’d love to have the amount of personnel to keep 24 lanes open 24 hours a day at San Ysidro, but we just don’t have enough people,” said Rogers of the INS.