THE NEW AMERICAN

The media captured images of illegals celebrating crossing the border wearing Joe Biden t-shirts as they were entering Baja, California. A little more than one year later, Californians are going the other way to avoid the skyrocketing cost of living and out-of-control crime.

According to a CNBC report titled, "The California exodus continues as residents head south of the border," "a rising number of former Californians are migrating out of the country altogether and are instead heading south of the border."

"I would say at least half are coming down from California," Darrell Graham of Baja123 Real Estate Group told the outlet. "Suddenly, the cost of taxes, the crime rates, the politics, all the things that people are unhappy with in California are coming down to Mexico."

A total of more than 360,000 Californians left in 2021 to seek for better life elsewhere, which continued the 30-year-old trend, CNBC observed. Most of them relocate to the states of Arizona, Washington, and Texas. The exact number of Californians who left for Mexico has not been documented, but as of 2020, 800,000 U.S. citizens are living in Mexico, per CNBC.

As of today, as many as 200,000 Californians commute between the Golden State and Mexico every day because "many of them work in California and live just below the border in Baja California due to its proximity."

Travis Grossi, a content creator for Café con Leche Travels, told CNBC that he was able to save half of his income by moving to Mexico.

“We were able to cut our budget in half, which allowed us to really focus on our careers and the things we wanted to do artistically without [having to] just hustle and hustle every day, every week, every month, to just meet the bare minimum,” Grossi said.

In Hollywood, he shelled out $1,600 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, while in Mexico his rent is $850 per month for a house with two bedrooms, three bathrooms, a shared pool, and 24-hour security.

According to data compiled by The Daily Mail, living in Mexico while working in California makes economic sense. A person receiving an average Californian annual salary of $112,000 may afford a lot in Mexico, where the average residential property price is $63,593 (vs. $797,470 in California), a gallon of gas is $4.55 (vs. $6.43 in California), and monthly rent is $430 (vs. $1,503 in California).

California’s Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures price changes in goods and services purchased by urban consumers, rose in 2022 by 6.8 percent, per state data.