While many migrants risk their lives in pursuit of the American Dream, Gabriel Zarate fled the rising cost of living in California and moved to the Mexican border town of Tijuana.

The 38-year-old Chilean-American is now moving to San Diego as an English teacher during the day and returning to Mexico in the evening.

“One of the main reasons is the cost of living in Tijuana. It’s significantly cheaper than in California,” said Zarate.

He also added, “I love Mexican and food.”

His neighbor and colleague Mike Rachfal also relocated from San Diego, where he used to pay $1,275 a month to rent a studio.

“Here it’s about half,” said the 36-year-old.

Cheaper rents can be a touchy subject in Mexico, where wages are much lower than in the United States and people also face rising costs of living.

Tijuana is one of the cities with the fastest rising home prices in Mexico — up 10.7 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2022, according to the state’s Federal Mortgage Society.

The average price of homes bought by US citizens is around $270,000 — “three times lower than what the same property would cost in the United States,” said Ruth Sastre, president of the local real estate association.

In Tijuana, a bustling city known for gang crime, new apartment buildings are springing up with “For Sale” signs in English and prices in dollars.

With more than 1,000 homicides in the city this year, safety is a concern, but Zarate said “I feel good about Tijuana in general, especially downtown or on the border.”

“It’s like any big city. There will always be places that are rougher or more complicated than others,” he added.

It’s a similar story south of Tijuana in Rosarito on the Pacific Coast.

Up to 12,000 people from the United States now live in the resort town after a housing boom that began a decade ago, said Jesus Rincon Vargas, president of the local construction industry association.

Overall, an estimated 1.6 million U.S. citizens live in Mexico, according to their country’s embassy, ??which keeps no official records.

You can stay up to six months on a tourist visa or apply for a residence permit.

Along with the lifestyle and cost of living, the relatively lax immigration regulations are part of the appeal for long-distance workers who flock to Mexico, particularly the capital.

Brian McDonald, a 34-year-old software engineer from Oklahoma, has spent more than a year in the Latin American country, lured by its burgeoning tech scene.

“Mexico City seems to be kind of a gateway for expanding businesses, and I enjoy working with start-ups,” he said.

“It’s a very friendly culture,” added McDonald.

Office-sharing company WeWork has seen a “significant influx of digital nomads” in neighborhoods of Mexico City popular with foreigners, spokeswoman Cristina Sancen said.

“Mexico City has an incomparable climate. It is definitely a cheaper city for foreigners. It’s also a cosmopolitan and highly developed city with startups and corporations,” she added.

Some foreigners working for US companies also prefer to settle south of the border.

Kirsty Hall, 23, from Scotland, chose Mexico City as her remote work location while helping to build a San Francisco-based tech start-up.

“I can walk everywhere here. I can ride a bike. Today I went to work on a roller skate. Public transport is fantastic and very cheap. People are also very hospitable,” Hall said.

The influx of foreigners has divided opinion among the capital’s residents, with some citing the city’s popularity as one of the reasons for gentrification and rising rents.

“I’ve heard that there is some prejudice against digital nomads in Mexico City, but I haven’t experienced it personally,” said Blazej Mosinski, 23, of Poland, who is doing a distance internship in San Francisco “for financial reasons.”

Other challenges with remote work in Mexico include slower internet speeds than US tech hubs and security concerns.

“I was robbed by the police two weeks ago while I was walking home,” McDonald said.

But “the rest — the good food, the cost of living — makes up for all of those things,” he added.