Financial boost, what lifting port restrictions has meant for Arizona's economy When you were around town driving any for border communities in Tucson and in Phenix, look at the license plates from Mexico and look at their back of their vehicles with all the shopping.

Crossing the border to see a dentist.

Why Americans continue to seek health care in Mexico.

There's a lot of offices in there.

Keep on opening, just like I started.

There's another dentist starting as well.

A precious resource managing water in the desert on a typical rough.

1000 square feet of roof with an inch of rain is a little over 600 gallons of water being dumped in there.

Hello and welcome to Arizona 360, I'm Lorraine Rivera.

Thanks so much for joining us.

For more than a week now, vaccinated Mexican nationals have been able to cross into the U.S. for things like visiting or shopping .

It's welcome news for businesses and families along the border and for the Office of Field Operations in Nogales.

Lifting restrictions amounted to a 70% increase in traffic.

On Monday, we traveled to Nogales.

It's home to three ports of entry.

Mike Humphreys is the port director and has served with Customs and Border Protection for the last 35 years.

So this is primary inspection, so this is the initial point a traveler entering the country is going to come up to.

So we've been getting ready for this for the past couple of months realigning, staffing, anticipating working with governments on both sides of the border to include law enforcement and elected officials.

And you know, we were long before we opened up November eighth.

We were getting ready for this for the people who are coming across.

What sort of documentation do they have to have with them when they're ready to present?

So there's U.S. citizens and permanent legal, permanent residents who just need to declare their citizenship or or present their their immigration document.

Truck drivers are still considered essential travelers, so they just need their their crossing visa.

Now what we started in year with November eighth was the fully vaccinated visa holders that could come in so they need to come in and present their documentation as far as immigration documents, and then declare the officer that whether or not they're fully vaccinated.

Our CBP officers without verifying vaccine documents.

So we want to focus on our priorities.

We still are responsible for border security.

We're responsible to stop the flow of opioids and other dangerous drugs.

So on primary day, get the attestation, whether somebody is fully vaccinated or not.

If they have a question about that, they can refer to secondary and the officers and secondary inspection can look into look into it a little further in Nogales.

There are a total of 17 vehicle lanes between the Mariposa and DeConcini Port of Entry.

Wait times vary depending on the day and the time of day.

Over the years, the numbers have fluctuated.

Arizona Public Media use CBP data to illustrate the movement Right now, eight to 9000 vehicles pass through Nogales daily, while commercial trucks average twelve to 13 500.

This port is on pace to reach a record year, with more than 380,000 trucks as a yearly average.

We border in over £1,000,000,000,000 of produce last year.

That's Arizona did not consume £1,000,000,000,000 you see, as you drove into town, the flyover bridge is now coming into a small town like Nogales State and invested $134 million for that.

You know, the one the one purpose of that is to get, you know, trucks coming through trade, coming through Nogales or going into Mexico know a mile and half up the road to the border away from the border.

So, you know, the economic piece that CBP does, that's jobs created and maintained, that's essential supplies that America needs throughout the U.S., food, cattle, cars, all that come through here on a daily basis and preparing for the government lifting restrictions.

Humphreys says his team relied heavily on the agency's online programs and digital app to process I-94 permits at the mall pedestrian port, six dollar permits that allow for land crossings and extensiv travel into the U.S. active for six months.

Many expire during the pandemic.

In two weeks, officers issued 3000 permits once restrictions lifted.

Humphrey says officers went from processing 30,000 pedestrians in one week to 50,000, the following.

Among the restrictions that remain in place are Title 42, the public health law that prevents many non-citizens from entering the U.S. claiming asylum.

Yeah, so title 42 remains in effect for everybody but unaccompanied children.

We're still processing those that enter another shift during the pandemic, Humphries said, was illicit activity, which continued and increased when it came to hard drugs, including 5 million fentanyl pills and £8,000 of methamphetamine, as well as a spike in internal body cavity carriers.

Though the agency declined to release the exact number of court officers in Arizona, Humphreys says Nogales is fully staffed and it's evident in the contraband seized inbound to the U.S., as well as outbound to Mexico, thousands upon thousands of rounds of assault rifle ammunition being seized.

You we've seen assault rifles being seized this past year.

We even seized a 50 caliber machine gun that is an implement of war, a careful balance, he says, managing international relationships that include travel, trade and public safety.

one thing we have to keep in mind is, you know, 9890 9% of the people crossing the border here are hard, honest people just trying to come over to shop, to visit family, to go to medical appointments.

And there's a very small percentage that are coming here for bad purposes.

So most people crossing the border are doing it for legitimate reasons.

We have to find those that are up to no good during the pandemic.

Commercial traffic increased more than 12%, and it's been growing over the years to support that growth.

Congress recently approved hundreds of millions of dollars in new funding to improve ports of entry in Arizona.

And that translates into stronger border communities, says Luis Ramirez of Ramirez Advisors International.

Approximately 440 million are going to be spent in Douglas.

In two separate but combined projects.

One about 260-270 million will be spent in the construction of a brand new port of entry in Douglas, five miles to the West, where the city of Douglas is donating 80 acres of land.

And that's going to permit the federal government to relocate commercial traffic out of downtown Douglas, Agua Prieta.

To a new state of the art, you know, beautifully designed the latest and technology port of entry.

And then the other 180 million or so are going to be used to modernize the existing port of entry downtown and really focus on expediting and providing a better experience for visitors.

And that's a huge boom to the retail market, retail sector, tourism, restaurants, hotels, stores.

These improvements to the Castro Port of Entry won't happen overnight.

So what's the anticipated timeline, given that the funding is now essentially on its way?

Well, there is two ways to answer that.

one is for the new port of entry because it's greenfield.

I mean, it is raw land.

You can literally focus all your efforts.

You can look at a, 24 month, 36 month project.

The downtown port of entry, because one of the conditions for the modernization of any existing port is that you cannot limit the throughput capacity, so must maintain operations at full capacity even during the construction phase.

That's where those projects that has to be done in phases for construction.

Those will take 45, 50, 60 months because they must maintain operations during a construction period.

And, you know, we haven't even talked about a similar investment is going to happen in some weeks as well Let's talk about San Luis will head west now.

I mean, that is a port that has been I mean, it's certainly very different than Douglas.

So what needs to happen there to continue to improve trade?

Well, you know, San Luis the downtown port of entry, which is all noncommercial traffic that's, you know, pedestrians, bicycles, cars, busses.

You know, we secured $152 million in fiscal year 2010.

And this infrastructure package includes another hundred 47 million.

It brings total project to 298-299 round numbers, 300 million dollars that are going to be invested in downtown San Luis.

So which continues to be among the most congested ports you typically see hour, hour and a half two hour waits for people to cross at San Luis So this this investment is urgently needed.

It's going to be just like in Douglas.

It is a regional impact, is not just a San Luis project.

It truly is a regional binational project in magnitude.

Luis, what is the sort of infrastructure package mean for border communities that rely so heavil on sales tax revenue from Mexican neighbors?

The projects themselves, because they're so large.

I mean, this is probably the single largest projects that are going to happen in Cochise County, in Yuma County and in decades.

The projects themselves have a huge economic spillover effect.

as we were discussing this.

These are projects that don't happen in six months.

It's years.

That means 200, 300, 400 construction workers and architects and engineers an are going to be residing in those communities for months at a time.

So the construction project itself will have a huge impact.

It's an economic boost for, you know, Douglas population less than 16,000.

San Luis 34 to 36,000.

And then you have once the project is completed, the infrastructure is going to be a huge boon for trade, for tourism, inviting her Mexican visitors to once again freely once they're vaccinated, to come across the border in a predictable time, not waiting for hours to get across So these projects have short term impacts because of construction, but generational impacts once the infrastructure is completed Luis Ramirez, Thank you.

Thank you, Lorraine.

It's estimated that Mexican shoppers spend $1 billion in Arizona every year during the pandemic, though it's believed that number dropped by about half.

Mexicans visit Arizona spending money at stores, restaurants and hotels.

Vamos AutoZone operates on a visit Tucson and monitors activity throughout the year.

Felipe Garcia broke down some of the numbers for us.

If you look at Nogales, a dog versus a noise, about 70% of their taxable sales are coming from basically from some of the border.

Here in Pima County, it's about five to 6%.

So maybe not the huge, the large impact, as you might see along the border communities, but definitely is going to be a very strong impact.

Just imagine with with the economic crisis that was brough because of the pandemic and not having that visitor from Mexico, that was definitely something a big impact to some of the local businesses .

Something that we notice is that hotel rates in particular, they have actually increased in the pandemic.

If you look at revenue collections based on hotels, the numbers are not bad, actually, but it's not because of occupancy is because of rates.

Hotels have been able to charge a larger fee.

Why?

Because of compression of the market here, people in the U.S. were not able to leave the U.S. for for many months.

So we stayed domestically.

So that helped create the demand and people willing to pay a higher price.

Now, with the Mexico visitor coming here, we want to make sure that they feel comfortable.

They want to come here.

Do they have the disposable income and now something that, as you know, lowering that is very interesting is that Mexican law, they establish a Christmas bonus that is called united or contrary to the U.S., that it's discretionary to business to provide a bonus at the year end in Mexico.

By law, it has to be provided.

So in the next few weeks, many individuals are going to receive an extra cash and they're going to have a sponsor a week.

So that's why we're going and telling those visitors about opportunities, sales, anything that we can have give them a reason to come here to choose on we or the state of Arizona and spend those monies here in our communities.

What's the likeliness, though, that the Mexican shopper stays in Mexico and spends their money there because they've been used to that over the last 20 months Absolutely.

That's something that we'll have to change because of two reasons.

Number one, as you mentioned, it's so people started getting used to buying in Mexic and not leaving the country and finding deals and and finding product and people actually making that product accessible or available down in Mexico.

A number two years ago, Mexico got very smart and they sold our Black Friday and they say, Hey, in the U.S., there's this great phenomenon of Black Friday or businesses doing promotions and specials, and they sort of protocol when seen the good weekend.

And he was supposed to be one weekend.

And where is Mark?

They needed the weekend before Thanksgiving.

So trying to again, those individuals are we're thinking of leaving Mexico to go shopping, that they will stay, but now will when finished extending to eight or nine days So it's becoming just almost a week or more than a week actually of discounts and offers.

It's happening right now.

If you go on Google business in Mexico, big retailers, you'll find all of them with very aggressive campaigns to try to retain those monies, not leaving Mexico and leaving the country.

So there was those two factors that we have to go and actually change the perception of the visitor from Mexico.

So if you're a Mexican national, what's the draw to come to the United States to shop?

Well, still, there's a couple of things no one is going to be The variety of product, I mean, the number of stores that we have here, we see it a lot.

For example, we keep some baby clothing specifically.

There's many stores here in the U.S. that will offer the kind of products in Mexico is more limited and still pricing.

Mexico has an on the clock trade war with China.

So you'll see a lot of products that are coming from China, especially clothing.

Some electronics have higher prices based on duties coming into Mexico, so that still makes it more affordable and accessible to come to the U.S..

So what we see again, those individuals and you'll notice when you are around town driving any for border communities in Tucson and in Phenix, look at the license plates from Mexico, look at their back of their vehicles with all the shopping.

They're not coming here to buy a pair of jeans and a one shirt They're coming here to buy all the wardrobe for the old family and buying electronics.

So that's a reason to come here.

They will spend more money, but again they'll be able to get more deals and better pricing on selection coming here to the U.S. .

OK, Felipe, take out your crystal ball and let's look into the holiday shopping season.

How do you see the next few months unfolding here in southern Arizona now that the restrictions have been lifted?

I think he's going to be interesting in choosing many reasons.

Number one, we'll see those Mexican visitors coming here and again you'll see them buying many products, not only for them.

We're seeing a lot of Chinese family members saying, Hey, if you're going to Tucson, here's some money.

Can you buy this thing from me?

We're going to see some challenges because again, what is happening with the supply chain in the U.S. and worldwide?

So we're going to have some products that are going to be running our shelves sooner than we expected here in our market.

But we're happy again, some retailers that are smart and savvy that they're starting to see those opportunities and shifting some in the Tories because they know they will be able to sell it here in Tucson.

Maybe not at least beyond maybe the full price, but against the audition price for for them.

So we're going to see a thing that happens in the holiday season, we just tell people.

Keep your eyes open, look for those license plates, say thanks to them.

And welcome back to the U.S. when you have an opportunity because again, they're leaving a lot of money in our communities.

All right, we'll end it there.

Philippe Garcia from Visit Tucson.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lorraine.

There's another element of tourism along the border, and it's for dental health care, which draws hundreds of thousands of people to Mexico every year.

And though the numbers decrease during the pandemic, the borders, proximity and lower prices continue to attract patients.

Tony Bonagura shows us how.

Nogales, Mexico, is known to Arizona residents as a place to go shopping or have some local food.

But this sprawling city is also attracting a growing number of residents who are seeking more economical dental care compared to U.S. prices.

We met Becky Fassett at the office of Dr. Abraham Chavez Portillo.

She dro here with a friend from Tucson.

I have multiple sclerosis and I was on a chemo derivative drug for the last ten years, and it basically just destroyed all of my teeth.

So it started from the inside out.

And so by the time I knew there was a problem, the teeth were already gone.

Fassett heard about some dental options in Nogales, Mexico, after recently moving to Arizona from the Tampa Bay Area in Florida.

Before I left Florida, I was given a quote for dentures for $22,000 and that was to pull the 17 teeth I had left and to do the dentures.

So it was $22,000.

And how much is it here?

What are you being quoted?

5000?

Yeah, so same, identical everything.

I mean, I've spent years in the dentist.

Tucson resident James Stojko is also seeking dental care, and just like facet, affordability is a major concern.

Hello, Dr. for you.

I'm a retired on Social Security, so I got to really watch my pennies dollars to, for that matter.

Open wide.

I need at least two or three root canals and crowns put back on and possibly some extractions if I don't want to go to the root canal in the crown, really, because they don't really last forever either, you know?

OK.

The lack of good dental care and chemotherapy didn't help at all.

Dr Portillo sees patients from all over the U.S. and Canada, as well as local residents.

He started his career as a dental assistant in Tucson and after attending dental school in Mexico, he worked for another dentist before opening his own practice He says prices are usually cheaper here due to factors such as labor costs or property values, although equipment is about the same.

I saw the potential tonight, and me personally, I I think that I'm making a difference.

I'm trying to make them have the best experience that they they can have here in Nogales and in patients are responding really, really well.

However, Mark McMahon was a dentist in Tucson, and when he retired, he opened Coyote Dental to refer U.S. residents to dentists in Nogales, Sonora.

His business has flourished and he's been able to expand to other places such as the Tijuana, Kabul and Cancun.

But it's huge, it's really huge, I mean, we have not even come close to penetrating the market in Tucson.

You know, people, most people don't know who we are.

And then you multiply that times the whole us.

And I've been doing it for about seven years and we've helped thousands of people save thousands of dollars, literally.

So you have to take this bill.

McMahon a dentist.

Chavez, 40, you'll say finding medical care in Mexico should be no different than the states.

Patient James Soyinka says you'll have to get a written release from his oncologist before proceeding with any surgery, but he's not worried about returning.

He expects to save between 30 and 50%.

Was a little apprehensive at first.

I didn't know what to expect or anything, but it worked out real well.

Look forward to coming back, probably getting the work done.

This year's summer monsoon was one of the best on record, dropping nearly 13 inches of rainfall across the Tucson region for many residents.

It's been a great opportunity to harvest a precious resource for personal use.

Here again is Tony Pena Agua.

Joan Miller and her husband moved from Maryland to Tucson in the 1990s.

Miller took a master gardening class that introduced her to our region's native and desert adapted plants.

She's been hooked ever since.

But all of that greenery needs some water, as Miller discovered with her growing collection.

We've had water bills up to $1,000, and that has been probably about four or five years ago, and I was harvesting pretty heavily.

Even then, we had to come to an agreement that we would try to keep the water bill under $700 a month.

Fortunately, she's also become well acquainted with water harvesting systems.

Her rooftops and containers provide the pathways.

Nature takes it from there, with the water harvesting that I've done recently, or water bill is around $150 a month .

The efforts that Miller is making are being replicated all over this region, and Jason McComb has been helping out with the process for nearly two decades.

Maycomb is the owner of Southern Arizona Rain Gutters, which he established with his brother in 2005.

They thought they were going to be installing gutters part time, but the business morphed into a full time operation that's mostly about water harvesting.

I would imagine this summer's monsoon helped promote your business, if you will.

It did, but ironically, before we even got the rain, this was a very, very busy season.

On a typical rough, 1000 square feet of roof with an inch of rain is a little over 600 gallons of water being dumped in there.

The Community Food Bank of southern Arizona has one of the most voluminous tanks in the city.

It is adjacent to the warehouse on Country Club Road, next to the prolific garden where you can often find Brandon Merchant.

He's the health and Guardian education coordinator at the Food Bank.

The system behind me is one of the largest cisterns in Tucson.

It holds about 14,700 gallons of water when it's full And what I like to tell folks is that represents about what a family of four uses in Tucson every month.

So that includes water for your your laundry, for your landscape, for your dishes, for swimming pools, all that kind of stuff.

And so it's a great visualization, so people can kind of see like, oh, you know, like that's that's a whole lot of water that we're using.

Here's more information about efforts to collect rainwater with the executive director of Watershed Management Group.

The Tucson based organization has been a trailblazer in this area and other sustainability programs.

We so we've been helping people live, hide your local here for a whil now, but we're trying to get that concept out a little bit more, especially this year with the re on the Colorado River.

And people are really wondering what does that mean?

What does that mean if our supply of water from far away is going to dry up?

Do we have water here?

And so we want to let people know that we do have a local water supply that you can live hydro local and that we as a city of Tucson, can actually live hydro local.

And part of that is learning all about rainwater harvesting.

When people think of water harvesting, they usually think of the pipes and the flows and the tanks.

That can be expensive for some residents in the city.

So you're saying that's not necessary?

Yeah, you don't need that at all.

I mean, if you can do it, great, but we recommend everyone starts with rain gardens, with basins and you can do it yourself so that can keep the cost really low.

You can do something as simple as adding wood chip mulch to your yard, like putting down some mulch that helps reduce evaporation and reduces your water bill.

You don't have to irrigate as much.

So there's lots of little things you can do.

You don't have to spend a lot of money.

Take a class.

Make a little adjustment.

Use native plants instead of non-native that will change your water use.

So, yeah, there's lots of little things that you can do to get on the path of water sustainability.

As part of that, you have some training called build your own basin.

We offer build your own base workshops, both virtually and in person.

This is the cheapest way, the easiest way for you to do rainwater harvesting.

So a basin is a depression in the ground, something you can easily dig by hand to collect rainwater passively.

And here at the Living Lab and Learning Center, this whole campus has these basins or rain gardens.

And so through this one hour class, we teach people how to do that themselves.

And then we send them home with a kit that they can do it at their own home or in their neighborhood.

And what has been your reaction to this very abundant monsoon in 2020?

My gosh.

Happiness.

first of all, I think we are just also happy to see all this rain, especially after last year and remembering that our weathe is variable, that we have year to year variability to see the abundance of this monsoon gives us hope, really , and we can see all these basins in action.

And the cool thing is, with all the extra rain, we're also seeing recharge happening this summer, which is so important for our groundwater supplies.

Many scientists have dire predictions about long term sustainability of areas like Tucson.

Are you confident that we can inhabit this space and live with the resources available?

I am.

Yeah, yeah, that's the hydro local message.

We've been sharing that if we look at rainwater harvesting, if we look at great water harvesting using recycled water, if we are recharging and stewarding our groundwater supplies and then just generally improving the way we develop our city, to have green infrastructure, to have much more efficient fixtures in our buildings, we do believe that we can actually meet all our water supplies locally.

And we don't have to bring in water from the Colorado River, this ship.

Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you so much.

That's all for now.

Thanks for joining us and a programing note.

Arizona 360 is off the air for the remainder of the year.

We'll be back in 2022 with new stories for you.

Thanks for watching.