The Ingraham Angle 4/22/25 Tijuana River sewage issue

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Pollution from the Tijuana River is a complex, decades-old issue. For Fox News it’s simple: Mexico is to blame.

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Written by Allison Fisher

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Every year, billions of gallons of sewage and toxic industrial waste flow down the Tijuana River, across the U.S.-Mexico border, and into the Pacific Ocean. It is a complex, decades-old, transjurisdictional issue that environmentalists and governments at the local, state, and federal level have been grappling with for years. Recently, entities on both sides of the border have made some progress, but experts agree that more has to be done to address the international pollution crisis.

But viewers watching Fox News would have scant understanding of the complexity of this issue, the shared responsibility for its resolution, or the progress that has been made in both the U.S. and Mexico. According to Fox and new EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the issue is simple: Mexico is to blame.  

Since mid-March, Fox has aired roughly a dozen segments discussing the pollution of the Tijuana River, often folding the story into its immigration coverage. Fox’s coverage has presented the issue primarily as a failure of Mexico to stop the pollution from entering the U.S., ignoring significant developments by Mexico and former President Joe Biden to update the infrastructure necessary to address the problem. 

  • Sewage has polluted the Tijuana River for years — but recently there has been progress

    • The Tijuana River sewage issue is complex and multijurisdictional, with “rapid urbanization” and “explosive growth” in Tijuana contributing to increased wastewater. According to San Diego CoastKeeper, “The Tijuana sewage plant crisis is rooted in the complex interplay of rapid urbanization, inadequate infrastructure, and strained binational relations. The South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant, located 2 miles west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry, was designed to manage sewage from Tijuana, one of Mexico’s fastest growing cities. … However, the plant’s capacity has been significantly outpaced by the city’s explosive growth and the increasing volume of wastewater generated.” [San Diego CoastKeeper, 5/2/24]
    • Tijuana's rapid growth is partly a direct result of trade agreements in the 1990s that encouraged “multinational companies to locate factories along the border.” Of the pollution impacting the Tijuana River, one expert concluded it is an “unintended consequence of the rapid growth that has benefited American companies, and I would argue more broadly, the American economy, at the expense of people who live in the border region.” Notably, in March 2024, California state Sen. Steve Padilla introduced a legislation package which would have corporations contributing to pollution in the Tijuana River pay into a cleanup fund. [The World, 4/15/25; Press release from the office of Sen. Steve Padilla, 3/11/24]
    • Lack of sufficient funding has plagued efforts to treat the wastewater. But in 2024, after years of advocacy by California policymakers and environmentalists, federal funding was secured to address the repairs and updates needed at California’s South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant. In December 2024, Biden approved $250 million in additional funding “towards the full repair and expansion of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant.” The work began in October, though the five-year timeline for repairs is still a frustration for those impacted by the pollution. [CBS 8, 8/21/24; 10 News, 12/22/24; BorderReport.com, 10/29/24]

    • Sustained funding for the waste treatment plant operations is being threatened by Republicans. In March 2025, House Republicans slashed the annual budget for cross-border sewage infrastructure in half, “affecting the operations and maintenance of vital wastewater treatment facilities, including the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant,” according to the Times of San Diego. Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA) said of the budget cut: “Deferring those smaller annual upkeep costs meant we needed to spend a lot more money later on to fix all the damage that was done, not to mention the harm to community health, our local economy and our national security.” [Times of San Diego, 3/10/25]

    • In January 2024, Mexico began rehabilitating a shuttered wastewater treatment plant, the San Antonio de los Buenos plant, in order to minimize “the amounts of raw sewage that has for years been spilling into the Pacific Ocean and contaminating beaches on both sides of the border.” On April 28 of this year, the plant started treating waste again, which will “dramatically reduce the discharge of sewage that has fouled San Diego and Tijuana shorelines,” according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre told the paper: “It’s exciting to think that once this source of pollution is eliminated, we will be able to have our beaches reopened during the summer and dry weather months.” [The Hill, 1/20/24; NBC San Diego, 4/28/25; The San Diego Union Tribune, 1/12/24]
    • Taken together, the improvements to the U.S. waste treatment plant and the wastewater infrastructure in Mexico are “intended to eliminate up to 90% of untreated wastewater reaching the coast.” [Fox 5 San Diego, 8/21/24]
    • In April, President Donald Trump replaced Dr. Maria-Elena Giner, the commissioner who oversaw the management of the sewage crisis who is “credited with overhauling the underfunded and mismanaged U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission." According to The San Diego Union-Tribune, “Since her appointment in August 2021, Giner had worked to overhaul operations at the South Bay plant to bring it up to speed after years of poor organization and underinvestment. Under her watch, the long-awaited project to repair and expand the plant broke ground.” [The San Diego Union-Tribune, 4/21/25]

  • Fox’s coverage of the Tijuana River sewage issue elides root causes, instead pinning blame on Mexico

  • Since mid-March, Fox has aired roughly a dozen segments discussing the pollution of the Tijuana River, often folding the story into its immigration coverage. Here are some examples of Fox's coverage.

    • During a March 12 interview with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, Fox host Laura Ingraham referred to the Tijuana River sewage issue as “what Mexico is doing to California,” and asked Zeldin, “Is this ever going to be fixed?” In response, Zeldin noted that recently “the raw sewage was getting into the Tijuana River and coming into the United States,” and he went on to say, “We can't tolerate any of that. Mexico needs to permanently stop it. And this needs to be something 24/7, 365 that they never allow anything, otherwise, to come through.” Zeldin didn’t mention any of the recent developments in Mexico or the U.S. to fix the issue, though he did mention that “Mexico at times has done what they needed to do to cut off the flow.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 3/12/25]
    • Fox News anchor Trace Gallagher called Tijuana River pollution from Mexico “a crime.” Gallagher said: “Over the past five years more than 100 billion gallons of raw sewage, industrial waste and toxic runoff from Tijuana have flooded across the border into our communities. The sewage isn’t just disgusting, it's dangerous. It contains E. coli, antibiotic-resistent bacteria, arsenic, and other toxic chemicals. 100 miles from where I'm sitting right here, flowing into San Diego and Southern California. This is a crime.” [Fox News, Fox News @ Night, 3/24/25]
    • Fox News anchor Griff Jenkins called the Tijuana River sewage issue the “next fight at the border.” Jenkins later read a statement by Zeldin, saying that the EPA administrator was “pointing towards Mexico.” [Fox News, Fox News Live, 3/29/25]
    • Fox News host Laura Ingraham: “Under Biden, countless drugs and thugs crossed our border from Mexico and now they're sending us literal human waste. … Where are the environmentalists?” In fact, environmentalists have been at the forefront of this fight for years, including pursuing a lawsuit against the federal government for over 500 violations related to the Clean Water Act permit of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/7/25; San Diego Coast Keeper, accessed 4/29/25]
    • Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer falsely suggested the Biden administration did nothing to address this decades-old issue. He said: “The previous administration, all the environmental concerns out there, if it’s been going on for decades why has no one done anything about it?” [Fox News, America’s Newsroom, 4/15/25]
    • On Fox News @ Night, Kate Monroe, founder of VetComm, called the sewage from Mexico “chemical warfare.” Monroe said: “They are perpetrating chemical warfare on our country by not stopping the thousands and thousands of gallons of raw sewage. These Navy Seals, the tip of the spear of the military in our country, is essentially chugging and nearly drowning in other people's fecal matter, drugs that are contaminated there, diseases.”  [Fox News, Fox News @ Night, 4/16/25] 
    • Ingraham hosted Zeldin on the April 22 edition of her show and suggested that the decades-old problem “might be getting even worse.” Ingraham said: “We first gave you a whiff of this story a few weeks ago. Mexico seems to be repaying us for taking all those migrants in during the Biden years, millions of them, by sending sewage into the Tijuana River, which of course flows onto the beaches south of San Diego. Now, truth be told, this has been a problem for decades, but it might be getting even worse.” [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/22/25]
    • During the April 22 The Ingraham Angle interview, Zeldin mentioned the completion of the San Antonio de los Buenos water treatment plant, but still squarely put the blame on Mexico. Zeldin said: “For Mexico, they need to obligate the remaining $88 million of their agreement for funding on Mexico-side projects. They need to finish construction to divert what is 10 million gallons per day from the Tijuana River Valley to the Tijuana dam. They just completed the San Antonio de los Buenos water treatment plant. And that list goes on. We need the full list over the top where this is done with and in the past for good.” In response, Ingraham asked: “Where is Gavin Newsom?” The California governor visited the ground-breaking of the plant expansion in October and helped secure additional funding for it at the end of last year. [Fox News, The Ingraham Angle, 4/22/25, ABC10 New San Diego, 10/28/24, Los Angeles Times, 12/24/24]

  • Zeldin’s visit to the Tijuana River was met by protesters

  • On April 22, Zeldin toured the waste treatment plant and met with local officials and his counterpart in the Mexican government. The national attention that Fox and Zeldin have brought to the Tijuana River pollution is warranted and welcome by those who have been impacted by it for years. But it’s clear that Zeldin and Fox have decided to use this issue to spin a broader political narrative about Mexico polluting the United States — when really, the region’s ongoing struggle with pollution is more complicated than that, with setbacks caused by underfunding and neglect on both sides of the border.

    Zeldin’s visit was met by protesters, including the Transboundary Pollution Coalition for Advocacy and Healing, which is made up of 50 organizations on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Environmental advocates are concerned that “the EPA will cut back funding for mitigation programs to clean up pollution in the Tijuana River Valley” and other funding for environmental programs in California. 

    Sara Ochoa, programs director with Coastal Environmental Rights Foundation, summed up the concern: “They’re just going to say it’s a Mexico problem and it has to fix the problem.’’

  • The Trump EPA’s new mission threatens our air and water

  • Zeldin bragged about what he called the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history” when discussing his plans to roll back environmental protections. Some of the Trump administration actions could directly threaten access to clean water by stripping federal protections, pausing funding for infrastructure projects, and making it easier for industries to pollute our waterways.

    According to Zeldin, the agency’s new mission is to fulfill “President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower cost of living for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions.”