SAN DIEGO — Border commuters are experiencing an extra layer of screening at the San Diego-Tijuana border as Mexican soldiers began randomly searching vehicles for drugs at U.S. ports of entry. The searches in Mexico are believed to be unprecedented in recent history.
Thousands of troops have been deployed to both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border in response to President Donald Trump’s border security measures and as part of a deal to delay one month the imposition of tariffs on all imports from Mexico.
While Mexican troops are taking a more hands-on approach with the public, U.S. troops are mostly doing what they’ve done in the past, such as reinforcing barriers and helping with surveillance.
In the first week of “Operation Northern Border,” Mexican officials said they arrested 222 people nationwide and seized 106 firearms and 1,242 kilograms of drugs, including 8.6 kilograms of fentanyl.
In Tijuana, a joint sting by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office and National Guard on Feb. 8 uncovered 537 kilograms of methamphetamine and 60 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a trailer at the Otay Mesa border crossing, Mexico’s Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection Omar García Harfuch said.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked Mexican Foreign Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente in a call recently for the “enhanced enforcement efforts by Mexican National Guard troops at the U.S.-Mexico border,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.
At the Mexican side of the San Ysidro Port of Entry — just steps away from where U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers normally check documents before vehicles arrive at the primary inspection booth — National Guard officers now randomly select vehicles or motorcycles, usually two at a time, to be pulled briefly out of line for a thorough inspection. Troops are stationed in both the Ready Lanes and SENTRI lanes.
The city of Tijuana had previously set up checkpoints in the same area alongside the National Guard to detect illegal activity, but officers typically mostly observed passing vehicles rather than searched them.
Now, the officers ask drivers to get out of the vehicle and witness the inspection, which sometimes involves the assistance of drug-sniffing dogs. The average search on Monday took about two-and-a-half minutes. Since the searches are completed in an area off to the side, at least in San Ysidro, they didn’t appear to affect the overall flow of traffic much.
Similar checkpoints have been set up at other ports of entry, including Otay Mesa for both commercial and passenger vehicles, as well as Calexico, according to news site Punto Norte. Some 3,000 troops have been deployed to Baja California.
The National Guard has also set up additional checkpoints throughout Tijuana, including one that was seen on some days over the past week in Playas de Tijuana.
Drivers greeted the inspections with mixed reactions. Tijuana resident Verónica García, 39, who was pulled over by officers Tuesday morning, said she was not surprised by the new checkpoints, given the much-publicized announcement of the National Guard’s deployment to the border to crack down primarily on the trafficking of fentanyl, a deadly synthetic opioid.
Data from CBP show that nearly all of the fentanyl entering the U.S. from Mexico is smuggled through ports of entry in California and Arizona.
Still, the use of troops at the Mexican border has left some experts questioning whether it will have the intended effect of curbing fentanyl trafficking without a greater focus on tackling the networks that control the trade.
José María Ramos, a professor and researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte, said Mexico and the United States need to address concerns about supply but also demand.
Ramos said the new northbound checkpoints are needed to crack down on fentanyl — “the thing is, you also have to integrate technology and have a far more comprehensive policy, not just a reactive one,” he added.
The challenge, he said, is not to disrupt border traffic, and that the officers’ presence does not hinder tourism.
Joaquín Luken, executive director of the nonprofit Smart Border Coalition, acknowledged that this is probably the first time binational commuters have experienced inspections on the Mexican side like this. And while the new checkpoints could cause some inconvenience, especially for those selected for inspection, he believed it was a “good exchange” to avoid potentially damaging tariffs — as long as it does not lead to substantial additional delays at border crossings.
It remains to be seen whether the results of these operations will be sufficient to completely halt the imposition of tariffs.
This is not the first time the National Guard has been deployed to the border. In 2019, during Trump’s first term, a similar agreement was reached with then-President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to send thousands of National Guard troops to the border, though at the time the operation was focused on curbing the arrival of migrants at the border.
US troops play supporting role
There are now 5,000 active-duty U.S. military troops stationed along the U.S.-Mexico border, Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, testified Thursday to the Senate Armed Forces Committee.
“I do expect that number to grow,” Guillot testified.
A Northern Command spokesperson referred most of the Union-Tribune’s questions about those troops and their specific activities to other agencies, including the Marine Corps and CBP. The Department of Defense has said the U.S. troops are focused on repelling illegal immigration, drug trafficking and migrant smuggling, but they are not directly participating in civilian law enforcement activities.
The Department of Defense has said it provides CBP and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, support with operations, detection, monitoring and crisis response — from both land and air.
That assistance includes maintenance on CBP vehicles and the operation of heavy machinery; the operation of mobile surveillance cameras; deploying troops anywhere along the border on short notice to provide medical aid, aviation or engineering support; and military aircraft crews conducting surveillance from the sky, dropping off Border Patrol agents in remote areas or transporting equipment.
Most of the troops sent to the border so far are from the Army, according to the Defense Department. But about 500 Marines and sailors from Camp Pendleton have also been dispatched to the border, according to a Marine Corps spokesperson, including personnel from the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion from the 1st Marine Division and the 7th Engineer Support Battalion from 1st Marine Logistics Group.
Photos released by the military in recent weeks have shown Camp Pendleton Marines setting up concertina wire near Imperial Beach and San Ysidro and welding a part of the border wall near San Ysidro. One photograph showed an officer from Camp Pendleton addressing Marines near Imperial Beach, with dozens of camouflage tents in the background showing where the Marines were camped out near a Border Patrol facility.
U.S. Transportation Command, which is part of the Department of Defense, has had the most direct contact with migrants by conducting deportation flights.
Meanwhile, the California National Guard continues to deploy between 60 and 70 of its members to ports of entry along the California-Mexico border, as it has since September 2023 as part of its Counterdrug Task Force. Those troops provide support to CBP officers at the ports of entry at Otay Mesa, San Ysidro, Tecate and Calexico East and West, but they don’t work with the U.S. military troops and are only focused on drug interdiction.
“All our personnel are supporting counter-narcotics operations only, and not immigration enforcement,” CalGuard Col. Brandon Hill told the Union-Tribune. “We do not work with or engage with the active-duty military personnel along the (southwest) border supporting immigration enforcement missions.”
CBP officials have said the CalGuard troops “fill vital secondary positions that would otherwise be staffed by CBP officers,” including helping to run X-ray machines at ports of entry in search of hidden fentanyl and other drugs.
CBP officers were also seen this past week monitoring vehicles driving from San Ysidro into Tijuana as part of their southbound operations. These operations are not new to the border region and are conducted routinely in an effort to intercept weapons, illicit currency and other contraband headed to Mexico, officials said.
“In terms of the southwest border, these inspections are critical to our effort to stop the cycle of drugs and people being smuggled into the United States, with many of the profits funding the continued operation of transnational criminal organizations,” the agency said in a statement.
Gov. Gavin Newsom said in December that CalGuard troops could also assist with southbound operations.
“A big part of what happens on the other side of the border as it relates to violence is happening with American-made weapons that come south to Mexico from America,” Newsom said at a news conference in Otay Mesa. “We need to do a better job to attach a focus of responsibility and energy in that space.”
When Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum earlier this month announced the deal to pause the tariffs, she said that part of the agreement was that “the United States is committed to working to prevent the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico.” Trump did not mention the southbound flow of American weapons in his statement, though it was discussed during this past week’s call between Mexican and U.S. officials.
©2025 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
