In recent months lines at the border often stretched for several hours, frustrating more than 150,000 students, cross-border families, health care workers, small business owners, and others who daily cross to and from Mexico. In the San Ysidro region, regular border crossers say wait times are going up, not down. Some 50% of the labor market’s recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute study.