On the east side of Highway 2000, the Altiplano neighborhood is where undocumented immigrants are held prior to crossing the border.

Derrik Chinn of Turista Libre: "While 2008 was the bloodiest year in the city’s history, the crime rate has plummeted."

Baja is back

Hip and delicious. There’s no reason not to get in your car and go.

By Elizabeth Salaam, July 24, 2013 | Read full article

I was hit with the realization that half of everyone I know was either currently gallivanting around Mexico or had just returned. Yes, I’d seen articles in the New York Times about the burgeoning art scene in Tijuana, and in the Wall Street Journal and Condé Nast Traveler about the wine country of Valle de Guadalupe. But somehow, as hip and delicious as all that sounded, I’d never relinquished my fear. Here it was, Semana Santa (holy week), and I was home in Eastlake wondering when Mexico had stopped being a scary place to visit.

“We’re all poor-but-proud expatriates here. I just cannot afford to live in America. Here we get million-dollar ocean views, and at ver-ry reasonable rentals, darling.”

The Tijuana of my heart and soul

Why Tijuana? That’s what everybody asks me these days. I know. These days, the headlines about Tijuana feature murder, mayhem, and misery. But here’s the thing. These days, when nobody’s going to Tijuana, wouldn’t you know it? I can’t help thinking about Tijuana…

By Ed Bedford, Nov. 11, 2009 | Read full article

Rental home on Point Dume Court in Chula Vista. A lot of cars rolled in and out of Point Dume now: a black 2008 Escalade with newly purchased rims, a silver Ranger, a gray Corolla, the red MR2, and a black Lincoln truck.

Want to Be Sent Home in Pieces?

At 3:39 a.m. on January 7, 2007, Columbia Street was almost deserted. Little Italy had been plagued with car burglaries — “It got where you couldn’t drive too many of the streets down there without seeing broken glass in the morning,” said San Diego police officer Joel Schmid, so Schmid parked his patrol car and approached on foot when he noticed a pearl white Escalade stopped in the driveway of a condominium.

One door was slightly ajar, triggering the interior lights. Schmid could see shadows moving inside.

By Laura McNeal, April 7, 2010 | Read full article

The house lower center is where the trio showered; they slept in another house a half block away.

Smugglersville

“The cops mess with us. The thieves mess with us. Everybody messes with us.”

I was hobbling back from the store with a liter of milk, when I saw three young men sitting on the steps in front of a house in my Tijuana neighborhood. My friend Trini’s son lives in that house. He was supposed to be renting out part of it to one other guy, but something must have happened to change that. Another neighbor has a nephew crashing on his property. I have no problems with any of this, but when Trini’s son saw me, he came outside and filled me in.

By John Edward Rangel, May 4, 2011 | Read full article

"We stopped being afraid of what was happening."

Zonkey Rock: Party People Take Back Tijuana

“The Tijuana nightlife has not only changed,” says Jackson, “but it has grown with the locals and the tourists. We fought the drug war by partying, meaning we stopped being afraid of what was happening. We wanted to stop being our own hostages, so we started going out. People started creating their own events or bringing them from San Diego, in the case of Club Purple, which is open to the 18-and-up crowd and goes late.

By Chad Deal, May 11, 2011 | Read full article

Frank and family. "At first, I was very angry. Now, I feel like I am in a better place with myself in Mexico."

Deported

Glad to be gone.

In March 2003, when Elizabeth Gonzalez was 17, she paid a coyote $3000 to lead her across the Mexican border and into the United States.

Elizabeth was told that getting into the country would be simple — a fake ID would be provided. She was encouraged to dress up and to bring a suitcase filled with her things. Gonzalez left her home in Acapulco and traveled to the border town of Nogales, in Sonora, Mexico. From there, she would enter the United States.

By Siobhan Braun, Oct. 10, 2012 | Read full article