enforcement on the 1,954-mile line with Mexico.Ĭross Border Xpress, one of the largest privately-operated U.S. Mexicans who ran across the border illegally overwhelmed the Border Patrol until the mid-1990s, when new fences and additional agents heralded a massive surge in U.S. The only other cross-border airport known to industry experts is in the European Union - between Basel, Switzerland, and France’s Upper Rhine region - but it carries none of the political freight of San Diego and Tijuana. “It seems so much easier, so liberating,” said Daniela Calderon, who flies from Tijuana four times a year to visit family in the central Mexican city of Morelia and has a friend drive her across the border from Riverside, California. The airport bridge is a five-minute walk to a U.S. Now, they drive about 15 minutes to a congested land crossing, where they sometimes wait several hours to enter San Diego by car or on foot. The terminal is targeting the estimated 60 per cent of Tijuana airport passengers who cross into the United States, about 2.6 million travellers last year. Passengers pay $18 to walk a 390-foot overpass to Tijuana International Airport, a springboard to about 30 Mexican destinations. Starting Wednesday, it will also be one of the world’s only boundaries with an airport straddling two countries.Īn investor group that includes Chicago billionaire Sam Zell built a sleek terminal in San Diego with a bridge that crosses a razor-wire border fence to Tijuana’s decades-old airport. SAN DIEGO - The U.S.-Mexico border is one of the world’s most fortified international divides. Walking bridge connects the new Cross Border Xpress air terminal in San Diego, right, to the Tijuana International Airport, left. Cross-border terminal: Bridge connects airports in California and Mexico