THE BORDER REPORT

Two hours, 39 minutes, 17 seconds. That's how long it took to cross late Sunday afternoon through Sonoyta, Sonora into Lukeville.

One. Car. At. A. Time.

Not having anything better to do, I set my stopwatch, bought a bag of tamales, stopped to snap a photo of the entrepeneurs in the above image, and sat back to watch the desmadre.

More than any other aspect of border enforcement, this wait time offers up a nice reflection of border security realities. U.S. Customs and Border Protection inspectors were running cars in at about one every 42 seconds per lane. As much as officials at CBP love to pound out the "we're stopping terrorism" argument, their inspectors know that traffic, not terrorism, is the real order of the day, best attended to rapidly and efficiently.

I think, given the circumstances, inspectors do what they can to inspect vehicles, but there's two problems at work in Lukeville. First, a flood of pissed-off Americans coming in from Puerto Peñasco creates the logjam. The second factor is the time limit for this particular port. It's only open from 6 a.m. to midnight. This means, that to avoid locking people in Mexico on a Sunday night, inspectors push cars in as fast as they could.

It's purely anecdotal of course, but I noticed that fewer cars were being thoroughly inspected than at, say, Nogales.

At Nogales, I've timed myself being inspected for anywhere from two to two-and-a-half minutes. I've been waved through numerous times, but overall, it's usually a couple minutes per car. But Nogales has eight lanes to roll cars through plus another four at Mariposa. There's time and infrastructure to handle the traffic.

Little Lukeville has three.

Rocky Point has been growing, and with it, traffic from Phoenix and Tucson. But the 66-year-old port hasn't grown to match the traffic.

Meanwhile, the Sonoyta Police Department has taken to placing officers along the line of traffic. Officer Manuel Orduño pulled the short straw for that unfortunate duty Sunday night.

"There was a gringa back there somewhere," he said, waving his hand at the long line behind me. "She was yelling at me, asking 'how come you people move so slow?' I told her it wasn't our fault. Go put in your complaint when you reach the puerta."

He walked away to yell at an Arizona driver who wasn't letting a pick-up cross laterally in front of him, then came back.

"Meanwhile, it's Sonoyta that is absorbing the impact," he said.

Javier Montes makes a living selling bobble-head toys to those waiting in line. Business has been very, very good, he says.

"I think the gringos are buying more of my merchandise because they're bored and don't have anything else to do," he said.

The bathroom entrepeneurs were making a killing for obvious reasons.

I spoke with Rudy Perez, Senior Transportation Planner and Arizona-Mexico liaison for the Arizona Department of Transportation.

He gives a grim picture of the situation, namely, that the port is only this jammed a few days out of the year. Because of this, the United States doesn't have much incentive to spend the money building the port out.

"The issue is whether this should be a priority based on four or five days out of the year," Perez said.

Consider:

The daily average of vehicles crossing is 838, not too bad.

Within the past year, the situation became crazed on these days:

Average Sunday crossings: 2,294

Columbus Day 2006: 3,896

Thanksgiving 2006: 3,697

Memorial Day weekend 2007: 4,761

Spring Break 2007: 2,260 (daily average)

March 18, 2007: 4,015 (last day of Spring Break)

Labor Day 2007: about 4,500

"So, the issue is that although the average daily crossing is not significant, it's bad four or five times out of the year," Perez said.

Governors Eduardo Bours and Janet Napolitano ordered a committee to come up with solutions during the last session of the Arizona-Mexico Commission.

The committee will present it's findings in November.

Basically, the committee will introduce three solutions:

Short-term: Add two additional lanes to the port.

Mid-term solution: Tandem booths so that two cars can squeeze in between two inspectors at a time. This solution is being tested in San Ysidro, where vehicle crossing times improved by 43 percent. The idea is similar to that of a Target store where two customers can squeeze into one  lane and cashiers ring them up from either side. Of course, the lanes will still need to be built out because as it stands, two cars can't squeeze into the current lanes.

Long-term solution: Conduct a master plan of the entire Lukeville port of entry including the highways and roads leading to the port of entry – State Route 85 in Arizona and the roadway that connects the road at Sonoyta to Highway 2.

Not a pretty picture for at least the next year if you ask me.

The only solution I can offer is leave Rocky Point at 5 a.m. Sunday or take Monday off. Also, use the last Pemex stop to tank up and for God's sake, use the bathroom before you get in line. To you Arizonans I spotted pissing in the weeds, you weren't trying very hard to hide and those buildings you were urinating in front of were houses. I realize this is Mexico but common decency still applies. Next times I'll snap your photo and slap that up on the site, comprénde?

I've added a link to the Links Page so you can measure border wait times as they come up.

-- Michael Marizco