The Economic Impact of Restricted Borders in The U.S.
By: Rafael Acosta Garcia
(Credit: Claude Nakagawa; Getty Images)
As COVID-19 cases continue to increase, economic hardships have prevailed since. Fortunately, on a general note, in the last couple of months despite cases and deaths increasing, unemployment also decreased from 14.7 percent to 6.9 percent. However, on the other side of the coin, one of the main focuses relates to the borderland. It has been almost nine months since the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders closed to all nonessential travel and the repercussions are significant.
In the city of El Paso, thanks to the Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP)—which has conducted precise data since day one of the pandemic—showcased the big picture in the most significant borderland sister cities. Their last Paso del Norte economic indicator review focused on the unemployment rates along with the border crossing numbers consisting of truck crossings with full containers and total passengers and pedestrians. The results estimated that from the top 10 U.S. border ports crossings by trucks, the most severe decline pertained to El Paso with a 36.1% deficit from the months of January-July of 2019 to January-July 2020. Meaning that from the 355,103 only 226,889 were able to deliver.
According to El Paso Matters, in an interview with professor and economist Tom Fullerton at UTEP, he mentioned El Paso loses at least 25% of retail exports this year. Such crossing restriction limits the number one U.S. border port located in San Ysidro, CA, next to Tijuana, Mexico. In San Ysidro, total passengers and pedestrians consist of 20.5 million per year, which mostly contributes to the economy through shopping, visiting family, or tourism costing the city $2 million in average daily sales. Similarly, in the efforts to reduce the spread of the virus, according to the Hunt Institute, the border ports where passengers and pedestrians were mostly affected belong to San Ysidro and El Paso in the months of January to July 2019-2020. Each with a decline of 6.85 million and 5.8 million respectfully.
Even though an efficient vaccine can significantly assist the economy to reopen completely, along with enabling people from around the world to go back to their daily commutes, some questions are still up in the air. One of them is how long will it take for the number of vaccinated individuals in the nation to be relatively high? Furthermore, the issue of transparency and skepticism around the nation is noteworthy. Will states or even the federal government impose the vaccine on everyone? In the state of Texas, are there any legal precedents that allow a mandated vaccination?
As the presidential election was called, President-Elect Joe Biden previously offered in his “Build Back Better” plan the strategies for jobs and economic recovery. The "Build Back Better" plan consists mostly of a macroeconomic stimulus in order to boost the economy. According to CNBC, the plan provides unemployment programs, extended paycheck protection programs, massive-scale testing, PPE distribution, a national contact tracing force, covered health insurance costs for the newly-employed, and emergency aid to state and local governments. On the other hand, regionally, what’s interesting is the position is yet to be seen.
Perhaps, as we begin to see positive immigration reforms, we will see greater consideration for the Borderland, along with team effort in order to optimize the binational relationship in the long run.
As COVID-19 cases continue to increase, economic hardships have prevailed since. Fortunately, on a general note, in the last couple of months despite cases and deaths increasing, unemployment also decreased from 14.7 percent to 6.9 percent. However, on the other side of the coin, one of the main focuses relates to the borderland. It has been almost nine months since the U.S.-Mexico and U.S.-Canada borders closed to all nonessential travel and the repercussions are significant.
In the city of El Paso, thanks to the Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP)—which has conducted precise data since day one of the pandemic—showcased the big picture in the most significant borderland sister cities. Their last Paso del Norte economic indicator review focused on the unemployment rates along with the border crossing numbers consisting of truck crossings with full containers and total passengers and pedestrians. The results estimated that from the top 10 U.S. border ports crossings by trucks, the most severe decline pertained to El Paso with a 36.1% deficit from the months of January-July of 2019 to January-July 2020. Meaning that from the 355,103 only 226,889 were able to deliver.
According to El Paso Matters, in an interview with professor and economist Tom Fullerton at UTEP, he mentioned El Paso loses at least 25% of retail exports this year. Such crossing restriction limits the number one U.S. border port located in San Ysidro, CA, next to Tijuana, Mexico. In San Ysidro, total passengers and pedestrians consist of 20.5 million per year, which mostly contributes to the economy through shopping, visiting family, or tourism costing the city $2 million in average daily sales. Similarly, in the efforts to reduce the spread of the virus, according to the Hunt Institute, the border ports where passengers and pedestrians were mostly affected belong to San Ysidro and El Paso in the months of January to July 2019-2020. Each with a decline of 6.85 million and 5.8 million respectfully.
Even though an efficient vaccine can significantly assist the economy to reopen completely, along with enabling people from around the world to go back to their daily commutes, some questions are still up in the air. One of them is how long will it take for the number of vaccinated individuals in the nation to be relatively high? Furthermore, the issue of transparency and skepticism around the nation is noteworthy. Will states or even the federal government impose the vaccine on everyone? In the state of Texas, are there any legal precedents that allow a mandated vaccination?
As the presidential election was called, President-Elect Joe Biden previously offered in his “Build Back Better” plan the strategies for jobs and economic recovery. The "Build Back Better" plan consists mostly of a macroeconomic stimulus in order to boost the economy. According to CNBC, the plan provides unemployment programs, extended paycheck protection programs, massive-scale testing, PPE distribution, a national contact tracing force, covered health insurance costs for the newly-employed, and emergency aid to state and local governments. On the other hand, regionally, what’s interesting is the position is yet to be seen.
Perhaps, as we begin to see positive immigration reforms, we will see greater consideration for the Borderland, along with team effort in order to optimize the binational relationship in the long run.
