Sign on San Diego
August 20, 2011
by Debbi Baker
Dozens of people gathered on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border Saturday to celebrate the 40th anniversary of historic Friendship Park.
The small piece of land, part of Border Field State Park in the Tijuana River Valley adjacent to the Pacific Ocean, was dedicated Aug. 18, 1971, by then-first lady Pat Nixon.
It was long a place where families came together to meet, greet and touch each other through holes in the fence. That ended in 2009 when the Department of Homeland Security built a wrought-iron barrier and strictly limited access.
Enrique Morones, founder and president of the immigrant rights organization Border Angels — who wants to see the area returned to the way it used to be — addressed the crowd in English and in Spanish.
He pointed to a large picture of Nixon affixed to the fence that was also adorned with sunflowers. The first lady is smiling and reaching over the border shaking hands with a man holding a small boy
“As you can see, when Pat Nixon was saying hello, there was no fence, there was no wall,” said Morones, who advocates for an open border. “And one thing she said was, ‘May there never be a wall between these two great countries.’ ”
Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, who also addressed the assembly, gestured toward the deep blue ocean and said the beauty of the area was juxtaposed by the ugliness of the metal barrier.
“We have to get rid of this so we can touch each other, so we can see each other, so we can sing to each other, so we can dance with each other,” said Filner, a candidate for San Diego mayor.
“I want to quote another president in a different context, ‘Mr. President, tear down this wall,’” the congressman said to loud applause, echoing Ronald Reagan’s famous speech at the Berlin Wall.
History professor Christine Moore, who grew up in Imperial Beach, said she remembered when families would sit by the fence and have picnics.
“I’d like to see the park come back to life, Moore said.
The issue became particularly personal to her when one of her most promising students was deported four years ago. She said the girl came to the country with her family when she was 2 and that she considered herself an American.
Carlos Santos, another speaker at the event, immigrated legally to the country 10 years ago with his wife and oldest son.
He turned toward the people in Mexico who peered through the mesh of the fence and told the story of how he came to the park a few years ago and was able to hug his mother for the first time in years. He said that moment meant everything to him.
“Don’t give up hope,” he said. “Someday people will be able to do that again.”
The celebration included salsa dancing, remarks by Tijuana Councilwoman Maria Luisa Sanchez and other Mexican officials and a moment of silence to commemorate those who have died crossing the border.
A tree was planted in the same spot where Nixon had planted one 40 years ago that was now long gone.
Morones said he was working with the Border Patrol to make the area less restrictive and that the two groups had made some positive progress.
“We believe friendship has no border,” Morones said.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/aug/20/access-issue-key-as-friendship-park-marks-40th/
Showing posts with label Nixon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nixon. Show all posts
Monday, August 22, 2011
Thursday, November 19, 2009
U.S. cracks down on border meeting spot for Mexicans
Reuters
November 19, 2009
by Lizbeth Diaz
TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - The United States has severely restricted access to a spot on the Mexican border where families and lovers divided by illegal immigration could unite briefly to hold hands or kiss through a fence.
In a move to stop undocumented migrants and the passing of narcotics through gaps in the U.S.-Mexico border fence between San Diego and Tijuana, the United States has fortified the area with a second fence to tighten security.
The Friendship Park on the Pacific Ocean became a place for cross-border weddings, church services, Christmas parties and even yoga classes when opened in 1971 by then U.S. first lady Pat Nixon.
Planned as a U.S. park with access for people on both sides of the frontier, picnic tables and swings were put out of Mexicans' reach in 1994 when the United States raised a mesh fence to stop drug traffickers and illegal immigrants.
But families could sit on either side of the fence to kiss through it, talk and touch one another even as U.S. border agents nearby patrolled to keep out job-hungry illegal immigrants, terrorists and smugglers.
The fence became a popular spot for separated lovers who would pass notes on Valentine's Day.
But the U.S. government's second, larger barrier has sensors, lighting, radars and cameras on the edge of the park. Officials built a patrol road through it and fenced off access to the old mesh fence that abutted onto Mexico.
Work finished on the park fencing earlier this month, sealing off access for Mexicans on the U.S. side unless they take part in highly regulated visits.
"It was an act of cruelty," said Katy Parkinson, a U.S. resident in Tijuana who runs a charity for immigrants. "Here, grandmothers met their grandchildren for the first time, they took photos, people could find each other again."
The Border Patrol says those on the U.S. side can access the old Mexican fence for four hours on Saturdays and Sundays once vetted by agents in groups of up to 25 people.
"People can still meet at designated times," said San Diego-based Border Patrol Agent Jose Morales.
"The second fence was needed because the first one was ... breached by smugglers and people passed drugs and fake IDs through it," he added.
BORDER WALL
Nixon opened the park in Imperial Beach, California, in August 1971 as part of her efforts to promote U.S.-Mexican relations and, as she shook hands with Mexicans that day, was reported as saying "I hate to see a fence anywhere."
The fence is part of the 661-mile double-layered wall along part of the United States' 2,000-mile border with Mexico, built by the U.S. government.
"We will find a way to see each other," said shop assistant Carmen, 29, whose husband lives illegally in Los Angeles and who used to meet regularly at the old park fence. "I can't cross into the United States, I've been deported three times."
Almost 12 million illegal immigrants, mostly Hispanic, live and work in the United States, including millions of Mexicans.
Since the Sept 11 attacks in the United States, political pressure for tighter border controls has grown sharply. Supporters of the border fence say Mexico's violent drug war that has killed more than 15,000 people since late 2006 makes it all the more necessary to keep criminals out.
But some border experts say the fence does not stop those trying to get into the United States and only makes it more dangerous. Some 5,600 people have died trying to cross into the United States from Mexico since the U.S. government increased border security in 1994, human rights groups say.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5AI53120091119?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=11621
November 19, 2009
by Lizbeth Diaz
TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - The United States has severely restricted access to a spot on the Mexican border where families and lovers divided by illegal immigration could unite briefly to hold hands or kiss through a fence.
In a move to stop undocumented migrants and the passing of narcotics through gaps in the U.S.-Mexico border fence between San Diego and Tijuana, the United States has fortified the area with a second fence to tighten security.
The Friendship Park on the Pacific Ocean became a place for cross-border weddings, church services, Christmas parties and even yoga classes when opened in 1971 by then U.S. first lady Pat Nixon.
Planned as a U.S. park with access for people on both sides of the frontier, picnic tables and swings were put out of Mexicans' reach in 1994 when the United States raised a mesh fence to stop drug traffickers and illegal immigrants.
But families could sit on either side of the fence to kiss through it, talk and touch one another even as U.S. border agents nearby patrolled to keep out job-hungry illegal immigrants, terrorists and smugglers.
The fence became a popular spot for separated lovers who would pass notes on Valentine's Day.
But the U.S. government's second, larger barrier has sensors, lighting, radars and cameras on the edge of the park. Officials built a patrol road through it and fenced off access to the old mesh fence that abutted onto Mexico.
Work finished on the park fencing earlier this month, sealing off access for Mexicans on the U.S. side unless they take part in highly regulated visits.
"It was an act of cruelty," said Katy Parkinson, a U.S. resident in Tijuana who runs a charity for immigrants. "Here, grandmothers met their grandchildren for the first time, they took photos, people could find each other again."
The Border Patrol says those on the U.S. side can access the old Mexican fence for four hours on Saturdays and Sundays once vetted by agents in groups of up to 25 people.
"People can still meet at designated times," said San Diego-based Border Patrol Agent Jose Morales.
"The second fence was needed because the first one was ... breached by smugglers and people passed drugs and fake IDs through it," he added.
BORDER WALL
Nixon opened the park in Imperial Beach, California, in August 1971 as part of her efforts to promote U.S.-Mexican relations and, as she shook hands with Mexicans that day, was reported as saying "I hate to see a fence anywhere."
The fence is part of the 661-mile double-layered wall along part of the United States' 2,000-mile border with Mexico, built by the U.S. government.
"We will find a way to see each other," said shop assistant Carmen, 29, whose husband lives illegally in Los Angeles and who used to meet regularly at the old park fence. "I can't cross into the United States, I've been deported three times."
Almost 12 million illegal immigrants, mostly Hispanic, live and work in the United States, including millions of Mexicans.
Since the Sept 11 attacks in the United States, political pressure for tighter border controls has grown sharply. Supporters of the border fence say Mexico's violent drug war that has killed more than 15,000 people since late 2006 makes it all the more necessary to keep criminals out.
But some border experts say the fence does not stop those trying to get into the United States and only makes it more dangerous. Some 5,600 people have died trying to cross into the United States from Mexico since the U.S. government increased border security in 1994, human rights groups say.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE5AI53120091119?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=11621
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
New Fence Will Split a Border Park
New York Times
October 21, 2008
IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. — At a time of tumult over immigration, with illegal workers routed from businesses, record levels of deportations, border walls getting taller and longer, Friendship Park here has stood out as a spot where international neighbors can chat easily over the fence.
Or through it, anyway. Families and friends, some of them unable to cross the border because of legal or immigration trouble, exchange kisses, tamales and news through small gaps in the tattered chain-link fence. Yoga and salsa dancing, communion rites, protest and quiet reflection all transpire in the shadow of a stone obelisk commemorating the area where Mexican and American surveyors began demarcating the border nearly 160 years ago after the war between the countries.
“It’s hard to see each other, to touch,” said Manuel Meza, an American citizen sharing coffee and lunch through the fence with his wife, who was deported and now drives three hours for regular visits at the fence. “It’s strange, but our love is stronger than the fence.”
But in a sign of changing times, new border fencing that the Department of Homeland Security is counting on to help curtail illegal crossings and attacks on Border Patrol agents will slice through the park, limiting access to the monument and fence-side socializing.
In addition to the fence, a second, steel mesh barrier will line the border for several yards on the United States side, creating a no-man’s land intended to slow or stop crossings.
With construction expected to begin early next month, the federal and state governments are still negotiating how to provide some access to the monument. But more than a few San Diegans see a paradox in an area meant to celebrate friendship taking on tones of distance and separation. Pat Nixon, the former first lady, at a dedication here in 1971, declared, “I hate to see a fence anywhere” as she stepped into Mexico to shake hands.
“It’s harmful to the kind of family culture we have at the border,” said Representative Bob Filner, Democrat of California, who has urged the department not to build in the park. “We have a friendly country at the border. We have family ties across the border. It is one place, certainly in San Diego, where we talk about friendship at the border.”
But Border Patrol officials, who regularly post agents there, said the park had an underside.
Although much activity may be innocent, smugglers have taken advantage by passing drugs and contraband through openings. People have even tried to pass babies through ragged metal slats that mark the border on the beach, said Michael J. Fisher, the chief patrol agent in San Diego. The agency now operates a checkpoint to screen people leaving the park.
“It’s a real shame,” Mr. Fisher said, gazing down as a young boy playing on the beach darted briefly across the border, then back again. “It is a nice area with the historical marker. Having people meet and mingle is good. But unfortunately, any time you have an area that is open, the criminal organizations are going to exploit that.”
“We cannot,” he added, “have it open, not at the expense of reducing the ability to patrol the border.”
The new fencing is part of a 14-mile project to reinforce and build new barriers from the ocean to areas east of the Otay Mesa port of entry. The project includes filling in a deep valley known as Smuggler’s Gulch, a notorious crossing point just east of the park, with tons of dirt, to the dismay of environmentalists.
Unlike the trend in the past year or two along most of the 2,000-mile Southwest border, Mr. Fisher said, illegal crossings have increased in the San Diego area, along with attacks on agents who encounter smugglers raining stones and other objects on them and their trucks. One-fourth of all such assaults, he said, occur in the San Diego sector, which more than a decade ago was one of the hottest spots for illegal crossings.
While a flood of new agents and bolstered fencing has pushed much of the crossings to the eastern deserts and the sea, where smuggling by boat is a growing problem, people still regularly climb over, tunnel under or cut through the fence, sometimes with blowtorches and sophisticated cutting tools.
But critics of the plan to extend the fencing in Friendship Park said the Border Patrol had exaggerated problems there, one of a smattering of spots along the border where the prospect of new fencing has dampened cross-border bonhomie.
Naco, Ariz., no longer plays an annual volleyball game using the fence as a net because the ragged wire one has been replaced by a taller barrier of solid plates. Residents of Jacumba, Calif., and Jacume, Mexico, who once freely crossed back and forth, complain that reinforced fencing has severed generation-long ties.
But Friendship Park, part of the surrounding Border Field State Park, had come to symbolize the tight embrace of San Diego and Tijuana, the border’s biggest cities.
Already, construction of the new fence has cut off a long stretch of the old one. But on a recent Sunday, a steady stream of people came to greet friends and relatives there.
Jacqueline Huerta pressed her face against the fence on the Tijuana side to get her first look at her 4-month-old niece, Yisell.
“Oh, how cute you are,” she exclaimed, forcing her hand through an opening to caress the baby’s hair.
“Where else can she do that?” said Ms. Huerta’s mother, Socorro Estrada, who drove six hours from Bakersfield, Calif., with family members to the fence. The baby’s father said he was on probation and could not leave the country and, in any case, Ms. Estrada had advised them against traveling into Mexico with such a young infant.
Nearby, the Rev. John Fanestil, a United Methodist minister, offered his weekly communion through the fence, passing the wafer through a hole to a small gathering on the Mexican side. (Technically, that was a customs violation, but Border Patrol agents nearby tolerate most casual contact.)
“Arresting a clergy person for passing a communion wafer through the fence would be a public relations nightmare for them,” Mr. Fanestil said with a smile just before beginning.
Juventino Martin Gonzalez, 40, accepted the wafer. He had been deported to Mexico a month ago after living and working in the United States for 20 years, fathering three children, now teenagers, here.
He came, he said, for a glimpse of the American side he still considers home.
“It is hard because I was the one paying the rent,” he said. “I belong over there, not here. But until then, this is the closest I can get, but it is not close enough for them.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/us/22border.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin
October 21, 2008
IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. — At a time of tumult over immigration, with illegal workers routed from businesses, record levels of deportations, border walls getting taller and longer, Friendship Park here has stood out as a spot where international neighbors can chat easily over the fence.
Or through it, anyway. Families and friends, some of them unable to cross the border because of legal or immigration trouble, exchange kisses, tamales and news through small gaps in the tattered chain-link fence. Yoga and salsa dancing, communion rites, protest and quiet reflection all transpire in the shadow of a stone obelisk commemorating the area where Mexican and American surveyors began demarcating the border nearly 160 years ago after the war between the countries.
“It’s hard to see each other, to touch,” said Manuel Meza, an American citizen sharing coffee and lunch through the fence with his wife, who was deported and now drives three hours for regular visits at the fence. “It’s strange, but our love is stronger than the fence.”
But in a sign of changing times, new border fencing that the Department of Homeland Security is counting on to help curtail illegal crossings and attacks on Border Patrol agents will slice through the park, limiting access to the monument and fence-side socializing.
In addition to the fence, a second, steel mesh barrier will line the border for several yards on the United States side, creating a no-man’s land intended to slow or stop crossings.
With construction expected to begin early next month, the federal and state governments are still negotiating how to provide some access to the monument. But more than a few San Diegans see a paradox in an area meant to celebrate friendship taking on tones of distance and separation. Pat Nixon, the former first lady, at a dedication here in 1971, declared, “I hate to see a fence anywhere” as she stepped into Mexico to shake hands.
“It’s harmful to the kind of family culture we have at the border,” said Representative Bob Filner, Democrat of California, who has urged the department not to build in the park. “We have a friendly country at the border. We have family ties across the border. It is one place, certainly in San Diego, where we talk about friendship at the border.”
But Border Patrol officials, who regularly post agents there, said the park had an underside.
Although much activity may be innocent, smugglers have taken advantage by passing drugs and contraband through openings. People have even tried to pass babies through ragged metal slats that mark the border on the beach, said Michael J. Fisher, the chief patrol agent in San Diego. The agency now operates a checkpoint to screen people leaving the park.
“It’s a real shame,” Mr. Fisher said, gazing down as a young boy playing on the beach darted briefly across the border, then back again. “It is a nice area with the historical marker. Having people meet and mingle is good. But unfortunately, any time you have an area that is open, the criminal organizations are going to exploit that.”
“We cannot,” he added, “have it open, not at the expense of reducing the ability to patrol the border.”
The new fencing is part of a 14-mile project to reinforce and build new barriers from the ocean to areas east of the Otay Mesa port of entry. The project includes filling in a deep valley known as Smuggler’s Gulch, a notorious crossing point just east of the park, with tons of dirt, to the dismay of environmentalists.
Unlike the trend in the past year or two along most of the 2,000-mile Southwest border, Mr. Fisher said, illegal crossings have increased in the San Diego area, along with attacks on agents who encounter smugglers raining stones and other objects on them and their trucks. One-fourth of all such assaults, he said, occur in the San Diego sector, which more than a decade ago was one of the hottest spots for illegal crossings.
While a flood of new agents and bolstered fencing has pushed much of the crossings to the eastern deserts and the sea, where smuggling by boat is a growing problem, people still regularly climb over, tunnel under or cut through the fence, sometimes with blowtorches and sophisticated cutting tools.
But critics of the plan to extend the fencing in Friendship Park said the Border Patrol had exaggerated problems there, one of a smattering of spots along the border where the prospect of new fencing has dampened cross-border bonhomie.
Naco, Ariz., no longer plays an annual volleyball game using the fence as a net because the ragged wire one has been replaced by a taller barrier of solid plates. Residents of Jacumba, Calif., and Jacume, Mexico, who once freely crossed back and forth, complain that reinforced fencing has severed generation-long ties.
But Friendship Park, part of the surrounding Border Field State Park, had come to symbolize the tight embrace of San Diego and Tijuana, the border’s biggest cities.
Already, construction of the new fence has cut off a long stretch of the old one. But on a recent Sunday, a steady stream of people came to greet friends and relatives there.
Jacqueline Huerta pressed her face against the fence on the Tijuana side to get her first look at her 4-month-old niece, Yisell.
“Oh, how cute you are,” she exclaimed, forcing her hand through an opening to caress the baby’s hair.
“Where else can she do that?” said Ms. Huerta’s mother, Socorro Estrada, who drove six hours from Bakersfield, Calif., with family members to the fence. The baby’s father said he was on probation and could not leave the country and, in any case, Ms. Estrada had advised them against traveling into Mexico with such a young infant.
Nearby, the Rev. John Fanestil, a United Methodist minister, offered his weekly communion through the fence, passing the wafer through a hole to a small gathering on the Mexican side. (Technically, that was a customs violation, but Border Patrol agents nearby tolerate most casual contact.)
“Arresting a clergy person for passing a communion wafer through the fence would be a public relations nightmare for them,” Mr. Fanestil said with a smile just before beginning.
Juventino Martin Gonzalez, 40, accepted the wafer. He had been deported to Mexico a month ago after living and working in the United States for 20 years, fathering three children, now teenagers, here.
He came, he said, for a glimpse of the American side he still considers home.
“It is hard because I was the one paying the rent,” he said. “I belong over there, not here. But until then, this is the closest I can get, but it is not close enough for them.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/us/22border.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin
Friday, August 22, 2008
Pat Nixon at the U.S.-Mexico Border
New American Media
August 22, 2008
Commentary by Joseph Nevins
Editor’s Note: Nearly 40 years ago this month, First Lady Pat Nixon crossed the U.S.-Mexico border and embraced Mexican children, saying, “I hate to see a fence anywhere.” Times have changed, writes the commentator, and ironically, President Richard Nixon helped to bring about many of these changes. Joseph Nevins is an associate professor of geography at Vassar College. His latest book is Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid (City Lights Books, 2008). Immigration Matters regularly features the views of the nation's leading immigrant rights advocates.
The death of nine Central American and Mexican migrants in a vehicle crash near Florence, Ariz. on Aug. 9 is only one of the latest grisly manifestations of the mounting toll in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. More than 5,000 bodies have been recovered since the mid-1990s, the “collateral damage” of a war on unauthorized migrants that has led them and their guides to take ever-greater risks to evade the intensifying boundary enforcement apparatus.
As U.S. officials and politicians almost uniformly advocate more of the same policies and practices that have led to the deaths, it is useful to recall First Lady Patricia Nixon’s words and deeds—that are almost unimaginable today—at the international divide 37 years ago this month.Mrs. Nixon was in Imperial Beach, Calif. on Aug. 18, 1971 to inaugurate a state park. A 370-acre, former naval base at the extreme southwest corner of the continental United States, it is the site of the initial international borderline after the U.S.-Mexico War ended in 1848. The park’s planners, according to the San Diego Union, envisioned free access to it for people on both sides of the boundary.In her speech, the First Lady promised to cross the boundary to shake hands with some of the hundreds of Mexican nationals witnessing her visit. As reported in the Los Angeles Times, she declared, “I hate to see a fence anywhere.”
After a member of her security detail cut a section of the then barbed-wire barrier, she traversed the divide and embraced Mexican children, stating, “I hope there won’t be a fence here too long.”
There were no criticisms of Pat Nixon’s statements and actions—at least as indicated by press coverage.
The appearance of what many locals used to call Friendship Park reflects the radical shift that has taken place since the First Lady’s visit.
The southern limit of what is officially known as Border Field State Park is today the antithesis of Pat Nixon’s vision: it is the site of a sturdy, mesh-like fence, and tall steel barriers demarcating the line that separates it from Mexican territory, with a second layer of fencing currently under construction. These are manifestations of a larger enforcement build-up that has taken place nationally since the late 1970s.
Her husband, ironically, had a hand in bringing about the changes: Richard Nixon’s administration helped to create the perception of a U.S.-Mexico border region dangerously out of control, and of an influx of unauthorized migrants threatening the country’s socio-economic fabric. Subsequent administrations funneled ever-more resources into policing migrants and the boundary. It was during the Clinton years that growth in the enforcement apparatus exploded, with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the Bush administration adding even more fuel to the fire.
Since 1994, the size of the Border Patrol has quadrupled, while the number of migrant detentions, deportations, and workplace raids has skyrocketed. With Barack Obama and John McCain both championing an ever-elusive border “security,” there is little reason to hope for a de-escalation.These developments over the last four decades have come at an extremely high financial and human cost: billions of dollars, thousands of deaths, and countless divided families. Meanwhile, though the boundary is now certainly more difficult to cross, most unauthorized Mexican migrants who try eventually succeed—92 to 97 percent of them, according to a recent study carried out by researchers at the University of California, San Diego.
While it is impossible to know exactly what Pat Nixon intended almost 40 years ago in Imperial Beach, her words and actions suggested an openness to imagining something fundamentally different in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. It is this openness that is so desperately needed today to end the institutionalized brutality and suffering that prevail in the border region and many immigrant communities. As Mrs. Nixon did, seeing people from the other side of the boundary as our neighbors and embracing them—rather than constructing them as faceless masses to be feared and repelled—would be a great start.
Joseph Nevins is an associate professor of geography at Vassar College. His latest book is Dying to Live: A Story of U.S. Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid (City Lights Books, 2008).
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