US-Mexico Border

A public information campaign began Wednesday urging travelers to be on the lookout for a practice known as “wildcatting,” in which unregulated ride-hailing drivers operate without oversight, largely at San Diego’s border crossings, putting riders at risk.

“Wildcatter” drivers are basically unregulated taxi or rideshare drivers. NBC 7’s Nicole Gomez has more on why they’re such a problem in San Ysidro. 

A group of undocumented women traveled from across California to the border wall in Imperial Beach Tuesday to stand in solidarity with immigrant communities feeling fear ahead of the second administration of President Donald Trump, who promised mass deportations on the campaign trail.

Nearly 200 families have gathered along a stretch of the United States-Mexico border for heartfelt but brief reunions with loved ones they had not seen for years because they live in opposite countries.

Tuesday’s meeting is an opportunity to hear from the International Boundary Water Commission, which operates one of the plants that treats sewage flowing from Tijuana to San Diego County

The South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant has had major issues in recent years, local leaders say, and needs more than $150 million in repairs before expansion can be started to treat the pollution.

A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer convicted of taking bribes to allow drug-laden vehicles across the U.S.-Mexico border was sentenced to over 23 years in prison.

Since October 2018, the United States section of the International Boundary and Water Commission has catalogued more than 200 billion gallons of toxic waste coming into the United States through the Tijuana River Valley.

Both surveys are intended to identify necessities for communities near the border sewage pollution crisis and its impacts on health.

According to the CBP, there were fewer encounters reported nationwide in the most recent fiscal year, but not in San Diego.

At a time when immigration is on the forefront of political discussion, the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection spent the day in San Ysidro to share an updated look at how resources are being used along the border, reports NBC 7’s Dana Williams.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has blamed the United States in part for the surge in cartel violence terrorizing the northern state of Sinaloa which has left at least 30 people dead in the past week.

During a public comment period Wednesday, supervisors heard from South County residents, some of whom said environmental conditions had caused them and family members to become ill.

Researchers say the air around the Tijuana River is dangerous, while county leaders say they have not seen the evidence. NBC 7’s Joe Little reports.

Avigail Silva, 17, who was born with cerebral palsy and suffered a brain injury she wouldn’t survive last Thursday, was later taken to UC SanDiego Medical Center.

Customs and Border Protection has not responded to requests for information on this incident, reports NBC 7’s Shelby Bremer.

Several questions remain unanswered days after Customs and Border Protection agents drew their weapons in detaining a San Diego family at the border, in what the family said was a case of mistaken identity.

There is new reaction to a story about a local family that was held at gunpoint by border agents. NBC 7’s Shelby Bremer has more from a civil rights attorney and those asking about accountability.

Cell phone video shows border agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry with their guns drawn on a family returning home from a funeral in Mexico Thursday, in what the family said was a case of mistaken identity as the agents searched for someone with a common name.

NBC 7’s Shelby Bremer spoke with the family about the traumatic experience.