Border wall going up in Friendship Park
The local groups and congressional leaders are urging the U.S. Border Patrol to pause construction of new border walls for 120 days so that the plans can be better evaluated and the public can get a sense of the potential impact of the structures.
During a meeting Wednesday, Border Patrol officials told San Diego County community activists that the agency would continue as planned with reinforcing the border structures that separate Imperial Beach from Playas de Tijuana in Mexico but would relay the request to halt construction to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas.
Members of the Friends of Friendship Park Coalition, a collective that advocates for access to the park, say they were told they would be able to look at schematic plans for the construction during Wednesday’s meeting but instead were shown only renderings.
“These two 30-foot walls extended across the face of this historic location will change the face of Friendship Park for decades to come,” said group member John Fanestil. “It represents, in our view, a desecration of a historic location on the U.S.-Mexico border. It will discourage public use of this space in the United States. And in our view, if completed in the current fashion, will in effect close Friendship Park.”
The meeting came a day after local groups gathered for a vigil, calling on the Border Patrol to reconsider the proposed wall renovation project that would replace a deteriorating structure at Friendship Park — the historic binational meeting place families have visited for decades to reconnect with loved ones on the other side of the border.
“The park is a symbol of that ‘other’ border. The border that is a beautiful place of cross-culture and friendship,” Fanestil said at the vigil.
U.S. border authorities say the current structure that extends into the ocean was not properly treated to withstand corrosion and that the Trump administration’s project to replace it with a taller wall needs to continue.
“We’re in favor of a safe, secure location at Friendship Park,” Fanestil said, adding that the plans should include pedestrian access.
Chanting “Make friends, not walls” and carrying signs reading “Save Friendship Park,” 60 to 70 people showed up at Border Patrol headquarters in Chula Vista to voice their concerns during Tuesday’s vigil.
“We’re demonstrating that there is a lot of interest on the part of the public about these new plans the Department of Homeland Security have presented about the construction of a replacement wall in Friendship Park,” said Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee’s U.S./Mexico Border Program.
“We’re worried that President Biden is constructing Trump’s wall.”
Rios has been calling on the Border Patrol to reopen access to the park, which has been shut since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Friends of Friendship Park began raising concerns about planned border wall construction at Friendship Park after Border Patrol officials said in a meeting earlier this year that the design did not include pedestrian gates to access the park.
That would mean the park, which is more than 50 years old, could close permanently to the public.
Though initially planned as an open space, the park lies between two border barriers, one close to the border and the other farther inside the United States. The space between is what Border Patrol agents call the “enforcement zone.”
The Biden administration initially paused construction of all of former President Trump’s border wall projects but is resuming some, including the one at Friendship Park.
The construction plans reimplemented by the Biden administration involve replacing the two layers of border barrier with 30-foot bollards, or posts placed close together, a design that the Trump administration began building along the border in Calexico in 2018.
When Friends of Friendship Park began voicing concern about the construction plans, the Border Patrol told the San Diego Union-Tribune that information about gate placement would be coming in the near future.
Members of Congress have been putting pressure on Homeland Security too.
Rep. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) said Wednesday that, as he understands it, the most recent plans include moving the pedestrian gate 200 feet east of Friendship Park, and the park would not be publicly accessible.
Vargas and 14 other members of Congress last week wrote a letter to Mayorkas urging him to remain committed to statements he made during a recent meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in which he pledged to protect public access to the park.
On Tuesday, Customs and Border Protection, the parent agency to the Border Patrol, said through a spokesperson who declined to be named that the border wall farther inside the United States will have a pedestrian gate “in this area.”
“We will identify opportunities to provide the public with access once it is operationally safe to do so,” the CBP spokesperson said. “While these opportunities will continue to need to be based on other U.S. Border Patrol operational requirements, the replacement construction project will not be an impediment to potential opportunities for future access in this location.
“Upon completion of discussions with stakeholders and receipt of the schedule from the construction contractor, CBP will determine when construction will commence,” the spokesperson said.
For local advocates, years of the Border Patrol adding restrictions to the park make them wary of vague promises.
Dan Watman, who runs a garden of native flora at Friendship Park, said it is difficult to trust the Border Patrol’s approach of “build first, discuss later.”
“We’ve gotten promises from Border Patrol over the years that they will work with us and they will open it more, but instead, things have gotten more and more closed,” Watman said.
The Friends of Friendship Park plans to convene a stakeholders summit at the end of August.
