SAN DIEGO ( Border Report ) — The city of Tijuana says it has removed 48 percent of companies “pretending” to be medical providers who had access to a program that issues passes to patients who need to cross the border expeditiously.
Medical and dental facilities would purchase the passes from the city and then give them to their patients allowing them to use the “medical lane” at the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
An audit of the program discovered widespread abuse and corruption, with many of the passes being sold to regular folks looking for a way to quickly cross the border.
“Forty eight percent of those enrolled were found to have irregularities and have been removed from the rolls,” said Pedro Montejo Peterson, Tijuana’s Secretary of Economic Development. “Many of these firms were reselling the passes, some of these so-called clinics had not been in business for years, and in other cases, there were companies that weren’t even registered.”
Medical lane at San Ysidro Port of Entry to be streamlined to cut down on corruption