Mexicali is a large and growing, low, desert community of approximately 1,000,000 people, located on the US - Mexico border, south of California's Imperial Valley . Growth is rapid, with many new immigrants being drawn into Mexicali's expanding maquiladora base. Mexicali's sister city in the US is Calexico, California with approximately 20,000 inhabitants.

Baja California Norte, or BCN, encompasses the northern half of Mexico's Baja peninsula. It is a region that depends largely on its industrial base, commerce, fishing and agriculture and tourism. Major cities include Tijuana, Tecate, Mexicali (the State Capital), and the Pacific seaside city of Ensenada. The bulk of the migration by illegal immigrants comes not from Baja, but rather from Central America and the interior of Mexico following a centuries old trading route north along the eastern side of the Golfo de California, in the Mexican State of Sonora.

Mexicali is located on the Southern border of the State of California, approximately 100 miles South of Palm Springs. Located in the hearth of what composes one of the most fertile valleys, the Imperial- Mexicali valleys (the Mexican port of the West Coast NAFTA corridor), Mexicali offers a strategic location from which to move components and products rapidly to global destinations. Its proximity to Palm Springs, San Diego and Los Angeles, California, as well as Tucson and Phoenix, Arizona, provides additional transportation hubs to interline and the proximity to speed goods to their final destinations.

Mexicali is the state capital of the westernmost border state of Mexico, Baja Norte which possesses a long and beautiful Pacific coastline. Mexicali rests on the US Border, 150 direct miles from the Pacific Ocean.

After crossing the border, trucks find quick Interstate access into Southern California: 185 miles West to San Diego and port facilities; 255 miles North to Los Angeles on I-5; and 555 miles East to El Paso, Texas and mid-point of the Border.

The community is predominantly an agricultural one, with stable families that have lived there for many generations. Like most border communities, Mexicali, Calexico, and El Centro have a flourishing retail trade.

Mexicali has an abundance of skilled, quality-conscious labor with an annual growth rate of 4.9%.

Maquiladoras grew from corporations that needed larger labor pools than Tecate, but wished to avoid the problems of Tijuana, and still be near the Pacific Coast. Of Mexicali's 122 maquilas, many employ more than 500 people for a combined total employed of over 50,000.