Friday, September 30, 2011

O-Tay! U.S. Consulate Tijuana Has A New Home

They just cut the ribbon today.

Here's a nice video from the Consulate web site that introduces TJ's many clients to its new office compound, which is located next to the Otay Mesa crossing, practically straddling the border.



Consul-General Steven Kashkett gave an interview with a San Diego newspaper that covers the basics, like the cost of the new compound ($120 million), its size (100,000 square feet in the main building), staffing (50 U.S. and 100 local employees), number of visas issued annually (190,000) and resident U.S. citizens (250,000).

The new compound is an antiseptic and boring bit of standard embassy architecture, of course. But that's a big improvement over the old consulate, a ratty little hovel located a few steps away from the Agua Caliente racetrack, a greyhound and horse racing joint that was like a living fossil from the 1930s culture of border sleaze.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

TSB: Bravo for the Ciudad Juarez facility. Let me know when it's safe for me to visit there. I was just thinking about the killing this AQ guy in Yemen. Which of these candidates for President in 2012 would actually stand up for our constitutional rights? (Like not to be killed or imprisoned by our own government on the whim of a Rick Perry?) It is a weird kind of rhetoric being used in this campaign don't you think.. Palenesque? gwb

TSB said...

It seems like all parties are on board for targeted killings. Harold Koh, the left-wing DOS Legal Adviser, says the "geography of the battlefield" in the war against Al-Qaeda is so flexible that we can lawfully hit combatants in Pakistan, Yemen, wherever.

I don't think I'm being paranoid, but when I look at who runs DOJ and DHS, I get an uncomfortable feeling about who they could someday decide is an enemy.

Anonymous said...

Me too tsb! especially if you get a Sara Palin think alike who tends to see russia from her back yard and stalkers over her back fence.. we could have a real national witch hunt on our hands! As they say in Mexico: Human rights is for the right humans!
gwb