A Rusted Gate In The Border Fence Opens For The First Time

KPBS
April 29, 2013
By Adrian Florido

SAN DIEGO — In 2008, the U.S. Border Patrol in San Diego replaced a flimsy fence with a tall, thick one at Friendship Park, a spot where families separated by the border have long come to talk through the fence. They built a gate into it to allow for maintenance on both sides. But it had never been opened, so it rusted shut.

Jim Brown, an architect, negotiated to get Border Patrol to open the gate for the first time ever this Sunday, just for a few minutes. They agreed.

“I came out with some WD-40," he said. "It was kind of comical — a little tiny can from a convenience store, spraying it on the hinges. No, it would not budge. So Border Patrol came out with some torches and what not, and popped it open.”

It just so happened that Sunday, Luis Angulo had come to meet his 5-year-old daughter for the first time — through the fence. She was born in Mexico. He lives in San Diego.

“My sister, she’s a lawyer in Mexico and she told me 'hey, you can try to see your daughter from here,'" he said, as the little girl stuck her fingers through the fence's tight mesh.

Bronwyn Ingram, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner’s fiancée, was standing nearby. She was there to help swing the gate open, and she said stories like Angulo's show that the ties that bind border cities are stronger than the fence that separates them.

“When you come here and you spend time, and you see the families talking together, putting their fingers through the fence to touch each other, it’s really moving," she said.

As crowds gathered on both sides of the fence, Ingram and Filner moved toward the gate. Brown removed a large steel beam lock and swung the gate open. The faces of people on the other side, usually obscured by the fence’s tight mesh, suddenly became clear. Cheers erupted on both sides.
Mayor Filner called Luis Angulo toward the opening. He hesitated, but then his daughter walked through, looking up at him. He picked her up and gave her giant hug.

A few minutes later, two Border Patrol agents secured the gate again. Brown said the Border Patrol had installed a greasing mechanism to keep the gate from rusting shut again. He said he hopes that means opening the gate in a gesture of binational friendship will become a more common occurrence.

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/apr/29/rusted-gate-border-fence-opens-first-time/

El Paso Again Tops List of Safest U.S. Cities

Texas Tribune
February 5, 2013
by Julian Aguilar

For the third straight year, the city of El Paso was ranked as the safest of its size in the country, a statistic certain to be cited often as the debate on immigration reform continues.

Congressional Quarterly ranks the border town as the safest of cities with a population greater than 500,000. Austin landed in the fourth spot, with San Antonio ranking 10th.

The report came out Tuesday, the same day that Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano visited El Paso and San Diego. The California border town ranked as the second-safest city in the category.

U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, said Tuesday that the statistic is proof that Texas’ border with Mexico is safe, despite comments to the contrary by some Republicans.

“The fact is, the border has never been more secure — whether measured in the $18 billion spent annually on border security, the 22,000 boots on the ground, the record number of criminal deportations in the past four years, or the record-low immigrant apprehensions this past year,” he said in a statement. “I agree with the Secretary and President Obama that we cannot allow comprehensive immigration reform to be derailed by those that refuse to see the reality of the border.”

O’Rourke’s comments came the day after U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, argued otherwise.

“Given that Washington Democrats like Senator [Harry] Reid have a hard time understanding what ‘operational control’ of the border means, I’m encouraged to see Sec. Napolitano visit the Texas border,” he said in a statement. “I hope Sec. Napolitano returns to Washington and relays to the President and Senate Democrats what Texans already know: our border is not secure and the federal government has a long way to go.”

U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, D-San Antonio, whose district includes a portion of far east El Paso County, echoed O’Rourke in his praise for what has been done on the border.

“With the right resources, the men and women at our borders have made counties like El Paso among the safest in the country,” he said in a statement. “After wrapping up a district tour in which I visited leaders of the CBP and Border Patrol, I have full faith that the men and women tasked with protecting us are keeping us safe, but more resources would be helpful in modernizing facilities in Eagle Pass, Presidio and Sierra Blanca.”

The volleying between both parties is likely to increase as lawmakers wrangle over how to best fix the country’s immigration system. Republicans have said the dialogue cannot be had until the border is secure, while some Democrats argue that conservatives will always find a glitch in statistics in order to stall immigration legislation.

The ranking is compiled using statistics from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. Some have questioned the rankings, however, because certain crimes, like extortion, are not reported.

The FBI’s website also cautions against making sweeping assessments based solely on the data.
“Individuals using these tabulations are cautioned against drawing conclusions by making direct comparisons between cities,” the site says. “Comparisons lead to simplistic and/or incomplete analyses that often create misleading perceptions adversely affecting communities and their residents. Valid assessments are possible only with careful study and analysis of the range of unique conditions affecting each local law enforcement jurisdiction.”

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/02/05/el-paso-again-ranked-countrys-safest-city/

One giant gesture: La Mano de la Paz

San Diego City Beat
March 21, 2012
by Kinsee Morlan

Standing at the western end of the United States / Mexico border fence is like being plopped into the middle of an awkward conversation between Frida Kahlo and Dick Cheney. Nowhere are the differences between the two cultures more apparent.

During the past few years, Playas de Tijuana has undergone a facelift. A nice, new wooden boardwalk runs alongside the beach, businesses are popping up and a handful of noisy vendors—hawking fresh coconuts, churros and frozen treats—pitch their goods. The bullring hovers in the distance as for-sale, fighting roosters run freely around a dusty lot nearby. Tourists and locals frequent the revamped park (recently renamed Parque del Mar, although locals don’t call it that), some to snap photos, others to take advantage of cell-phone signals that don’t always recognize the precise location of the international boundary. A large fiberglass sculpture of dolphins frolicking in the sea has been placed in the middle of a concrete slab in the park, just feet away from the fence.

On the U.S. side of the border, signs of new construction are visible, too. A huge crane casts a shadow across the fence. It’s parked a few feet in front of a temporary construction platform that stretches out into the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is in the middle of replacing the old border fence—a rusted, ragtag wall made of recycled helicopter landing pads from the Gulf War—with a much higher, sturdier barrier. A new tower structure, complete with what appear to be video cameras, adds to the militarized feeling—one of the reasons few folks visit the surrounding state park these days. But no matter how high the fence is or how many Border Patrol agents sit at the ready, it all seems futile—the fence still ends abruptly in the ocean, met by the vastness of the sea.

Artists have already responded to the new fence, covering its brown, oxidized steel columns with white messages and images commenting on, and questioning the need for, a higher fence. One artist has taken the iconic street sign that warns freeway drivers about immigrant families darting across the road, flipped the image on its side and armed the father, who’s pulling a woman and child forward, with a small bundle of balloons.

“This should be a very, very important place, but it’s like nothing is here to let you know,” Youn Woo Chaa says, squinting in the afternoon sun as he looks out over the border fence. “It’s a little strange. And the dolphin piece, why is that here? It doesn’t make sense for me as an artist.”

Chaa, a Korean artist with long black dreads dangling down his back, first set foot on the site more than 15 years ago. It was different then—not as developed on either side— and he remembers being astounded by the openness of the border. Born in Seoul, his idea of an international border came from the one separating South Korea from North Korea. “You cannot cross through that border,” he laughs. “Maybe if you’re a 007 secret agent or something.”

The closest Chaa ever got to his hometown border was the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Three years of military service is required in South Korea (up to 10 years is mandatory in the North), and Chaa was stationed in the DMZ for a short time before too many deaths, mostly caused by friendly fire, exploding mines and other accidents, forced a commander to relocate his unit, Chaa says.

Chaa eventually married a woman from the United States and moved to Los Angeles. He liked the idea of being able to cross an international border whenever he wanted with relative ease—no mines or gunfire—so he started making regular trips to Tijuana. He began feeling strong connections to the Mexican people. The poverty in the region reminded him of Korea in the ’60s, and though he didn’t speak Spanish, he felt as though Mexican people understood him and vice versa.

“It’s like I can open the curtains to their minds,” he says. “I know who they truly are, what they want and how to talk to them. I feel much closer to Korean people when I’m here in Mexico.”

The language barrier is partially responsible for giving Chaa his big idea. He noticed that when Mexicans said hello to him, they often nodded their heads and threw up a quick peace sign, as if trying to communicate friendliness without having to understand words. The image stuck with him, and while visiting the border fence in Playas about a year ago, he suddenly knew exactly what he needed to do.

“La Mano de la Paz", a giant hand making a peace sign—that’s what the park needed. Nothing too kitschy or corny. Something elegant and interactive with a water feature at the base of the sculpture that misted, creating a rainbow at certain angles, plus an interactive component that responded to noise by generating the image of a snowflake on a circular LCD screen below the sculpture’s elevated base. The hand would need to be at least 15 feet high and made of galvanized steel wires, welded and wound together in a way that made each finger end in its own unique fingerprint.

“After I got the idea, I got stuck on it, and I started hating those stupid dolphins even more,” Chaa says. “That sculpture is falling apart, anyway. It’s fine for some hotel or resort front, but not here. The border is right there, you know?”


When Angel Hernández Huerta got the call from the elderly lady at a basket shop in Rosarito, he was skeptical. Probably just another gringo looking for a weaver to make a bunch of cheap goods, he thought. He arranged a meeting in a parking lot, and when he saw that Chaa was Asian, not American, his wariness grew. What was this guy really up to? Hernández pretended not to speak or understand any English. He listened as Chaa explained to the translator that he was an artist looking for a professional weaver who could collaborate on his art pieces. Eventually, Hernández decided that Chaa was harmless, maybe even interesting.

“Now Angel’s like a brother. We’ve been working together six or seven years,” Chaa says, patting the husky artisan on the back

But finding Hernández took much longer than that one parking-lot introduction.

Twelve years ago, Chaa stopped liking the art he’d been making. He was becoming known for his ancient-artifact-inspired work, but it was starting to feel fake. He wanted a more direct connection to primitive peoples and their art. While meditating in the desert one day, he got his answer: Go to the Amazon.

“I was, like, Amazon dot-com? What? Why?” he says.

Eventually, the voice in his head made it clear that he should go to the Amazon jungle. A few months later, he bought a one-way ticket, packed a backpack and made the trip. At first, he was interested in investigating the “art instinct.” He wanted to know if primitive people had an inclination to make and own art, or if it was ingrained through economics and other external influences.

“I didn’t have to go around asking that question, though, because they had hanging art in their house,” he says. “I asked, ‘What is the function?’ And it’s just beautiful—that is the function. So, I got my answer the first week.”

Chaa wandered from village to village, witnessing what had become of the indigenous peoples’ way of life, which had been devastated by the Brazilian government’s pursuit of the Amazon’s natural resources.

The Brazilian military wasn’t exactly accommodating—Chaa managed to get himself arrested and put in a makeshift prison. He escaped, but was shot with a pellet gun in the process. He calls getting shot “the big accident” that ultimately helped him find his way.

“I thought, ‘This is so bad; this is so, so bad. And I cannot do anything about this reality. What can I do?’” he recalls.

He left the Amazon knowing he had to make art that would tell the story of the plight of the indigenous people. He tried a couple of different methods before settling on weaving, a skill he’d seen on display in the villages he visited. With no background in textiles, he taught himself traditional weaving techniques but replaced the geometric patterns with portraiture and other real-life images. The process, though, took too long. His hands were starting to cramp and he couldn’t do the work himself or find anyone in L.A. willing to help. So, he went looking for a weaver and a better technique in Mexico.

The result was stunning. With Hernández by his side, Chaa is able to make large-scale weavings that, from afar, look as well-done as a Renaissance painting. Close up, viewers see that the images are created through carefully woven colored fibers, similar to the those found in baskets. An exhibition of the work is on view at the Universidad Tecnologica de Tijuana through April 29.

Chaa’s been weaving for a decade now, but his idea for the peace-sign sculpture required learning a new skill: welding. Because of his experience with weaving, he knew he could do it as long as he found the right teacher.


Victor Chavez has run a successful welding shop and storefront in Rosarito for 12 years. At the height of his business, back when tourism was booming, he had 40 workers in his factory making everything from custom gates to those giant, familiar ants made of welded rebar and rocks. Chavez is actually working on a book about the ants—he claims his shop was the first to carry them, and they’ve since become one of the most popular Mexican souvenirs.

Chaa and Hernández knew Chavez was their guy. They showed him the drawing of the sculpture and asked if it was possible. Chavez didn’t know, but he was willing to try.

“Art, I start with Chaa,” Chavez says proudly. “Before I made artisan things for tourists. I do real art with him. It’s different when you’re making art. It’s different than the things I normally make. When you’re making art, you don’t want to stop, you know?”


Chavez says Hernández learned to weld in three days. Chaa’s getting it, too, and he’s teaching himself how to galvanize steel because he wants more control over the end result. The ragtag team has made three small-scale hand sculptures so far, and they estimate that about 1,000 hours were spent on each one.

“Even with my weaving pieces, people say it’s between art and insanity,” Chaa says, holding up one of the hands. “This is really insane.”

Back at the park near the border, Hernández tells me he might like welding more than weaving. He doesn’t mind staying up all night with Chavez and Chaa working on the hands. He and Chavez both say the project is the biggest, most exciting thing they’ve ever worked on. And they’re starting to hate the dolphin sculpture almost as much as Chaa does.

“A lot of Mexican people, we don’t want that thing,” Hernández says. “It’s so sad for me; the border line. It keeps going up and up, higher and higher. So, we need to do something nice to break that feeling.”


Jorge Conde, director of cultural affairs at the Universidad Tecnologica de Tijuana, is somewhat of a bigwig in the Tijuana art scene. He says he’s behind “La Mano de la Paz” 100 percent.

“I really love the location of the piece,” he says as he shows Chaa’s exhibition, which he curated. “The concept is very important to say, ‘Latin America is a continent of peace.’ And it won’t be kitsch at all. Not in the hands of Chaa.”

Conde stands back from one of Chaa’s large-scale pieces, a woven portrait of a nude woman with her back to the viewer. “This one is my favorite. Just look at it, see the shadow on her back?”


Conde will be a driving force behind getting the necessary permits and approval for removing the dolphins and mounting “La Mano de la Paz.” He’s joined forces with Martina Montenegro, director of the arts nonprofit Casa de Cultura Playas, who’s also a fan of the project.

“It’s very important because it’s related to hope, peace and fraternity between two countries,” Montenegro says. “The fence has a very negative impact, when you’re talking about two countries that are supposed to be friends. This is not the way you treat your friends.”

Funding for the project will come through a Kickstarter campaign. The team is hoping to raise $50,000 through crowd-sourcing, offering small versions of the sculpture and things like T-shirts and hoodies in exchange for higher bids; they say they’ll secure the rest of the funding through grants and private donations. If enough money is raised, Chaa, Hernández and Chavez will begin work on the full-size version of the hand this summer. They hope to have the piece done and installed by the end of the year.

The biggest hurdle, though, could be figuring out who has jurisdiction in the park.

“That’s a good question,” laughs Margarita Diaz, director of the nonprofit Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación Ambiental. “The land is everyone’s and no one’s.”

Diaz, another supporter of “La Mano de la Paz,” says the land is being transferred from state to city property and that her nonprofit, which was selected by a dozen nonprofits to represent them, has submitted a formal request to have the land turned over to them. She says that since Mexican President Felipe Calderón and his wife came to visit Playas de Tijuana in 2010, demanding the region be redeveloped, the state stepped in and did a lot of quick construction—including adding the dolphin sculpture—without first checking with the community.

“It’s a mess,” Diaz says. “And no one likes those dolphins. They’re falling apart and dangerous. I want to rip them down with my bare hands.”

Getting the Instituto Municipal de Cultura y Arte (IMAC), the organization that oversees Tijuana’s public-art program, on their side could be a challenge, too. Elsa Arnaiz Rosas, director of IMAC, says she enjoys the present art.

“I’ve seen the dolphins, and I know they do need maintenance, but I think they’re lovely,” she says. “I wouldn’t want to see the sculpture go.”


On the way back from touring Chaa’s art show at the university, the “La Mano de la Paz” team is spread out in a big van. Conde slows the vehicle after it merges onto one of Tijuana’s main highways and points toward two huge construction projects near El Trompo, Tijuana’s children’s museum.

“That’s going to be the Human Rights Museum,” he says. “And that will be the Centro Estatal de Las Artes, a new art center.”

Chavez smiles and says that things in Mexico are starting to improve. He’s seen his business drop by more than 80 percent since drug-war violence erupted a few years ago and tourism plummeted, but he hopes things will get better.

“How long do you think before Americans forget all this violence stuff and come back?” he asks. “I think one, maybe two years. I think ‘La Mano de la Paz’ could help. Peace—we have a lot to learn here in Mexico, but this sculpture could be a start.”

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-10316-one-giant-gesture-la.html

Border fence blocks access to important historical site

San Diego City Beat
December 21, 2011
by Kinsee Morlan

Before fences marked the U.S.-Mexico border, a series of small obelisks dotted the landscape and identified the line separating the two countries. Fifty-two monuments were erected between 1849 and 1857, and then, due to population growth in the border region and questions about where the international border actually was, more than 200 more monuments were built from 1891 to 1894, bringing the total to 258.

One of the original 52 monuments, Border Monument 258, still stands inside Border Field State Park, just a few hundred feet from the Pacific Ocean. It was the first monument built after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and set the international boundary. Historian Charles W. Hughes is among those who believe that two time capsules are buried under Monument 258—one placed in 1840 when the temporary monument went up and one possibly placed in 1851 when the permanent structure was built.





Made of a block of polished marble, Monument 258 was a hotspot for tourists on their way to or back from Tijuana. Some visitors would even chip off a piece of the marble and take it with them as a souvenir.

“If you came to San Diego between the 1850s up into the early 1900s, it was one of the places to go,” said Hughes, who published an article on the history of the monument in Journal of San Diego History in 2007 and considers it to be one of the oldest and most important historical sites in San Diego. “It was like going out to Cabrillo National Monument.”

Hughes said the U.S. military used Border Field State Park as a training ground and tested drones, or unmanned aircraft, just before World War II, which dramatically decreased visitations to the park. Since then, the park has remained largely underused, except by people separated by immigration status who continue to use the park as a way to meet up with family members and friends on the other side of the border. In 1971, First Lady Pat Nixon dedicated the land surrounding Monument 258 as Friendship Park, a symbol of the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico and recognizing the binational use of the land.

Last week on CityBeat’s Canvassed blog, we reported that a replacement fence had gone up at Border Field State Park, completely blocking access to Border Monument 258 from the U.S. side by three feet. The new fence, which was sited by the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), replaces the original border fence, which had bisected Monument 258, allowing access from both sides of the border.

Even in 2008, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) erected a double fence at Friendship Park, activists with Friends of Friendship Park made sure access to the monument was maintained, even if limited by a gateway that was locked outside of set hours. Members of Friends of Friendship Park said they were shocked and disappointed when they saw the new location of the fence last week.

“Those in the U.S. have a right to access the monument without having to get in their car, cross the border and drive to Las Playas,” said Nathan Trotter of Friends of Friendship Park. “I think it’s a crime for the IBWC or Border Patrol to deprive us of an object of such historical interest.”

Bruce Coons, executive director of Save Our Heritage Organisation, agreed. “First of all, it’s American territory, and it belongs to us,” Coons said. “It’s really asinine to put the monument on the other side of the fence.”

IBWC spokesperson Sally Spener said the commission has yet to receive any complaints about the location of the replacement fence, but if it does, she said IBWC might be willing to relocate the fence.

“In regards to Monument 258, we are certainly willing to work with the community if they have specific concerns because of the unique nature and the unique role that Monument 258 has played in border history,” she said.

Coons and Trotter said they weren’t aware the fence was going to be relocated until construction began last week, so they’ve just begun lodging complaints with IBWC and elected officials.

“No notifications went out, so nobody in the community knew about this,” Trotter said. “So, I guess it’s good to hear [IBWC] might be willing to negotiate with us in moving the fence and allowing access to the monument again.”

James Brown, an architect and Friends of Friendship Park volunteer, said that IBWC isn’t allowed to build anything within three feet of the monument. He said even with that requirement, there’s a design solution.

“I wish I would have known earlier about the decision to relocate the fence,” Brown said. “The solution is simple—they just need to put the posts three feet away, and they can surround the monument with all the mesh they want.”

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-9964-border-fence-blocks-access-to-important-historical-site.html

US-Mexico immigration: Even oceans have borders

BBC
December 16, 2011
By Valeria Perasso

The US government is erecting a fence in the ocean to divide California from Tijuana, Mexico. Immigration and environmental activists say it is a costly, dangerous endeavour that will do little to keep out unauthorised migrants.

On a sunny strip of beach south of San Diego, California, the US government is literally battling the tide of illegal immigration.

Border authorities are building a fence extending 300ft (91m) into the surf, in an effort to prevent would-be migrants from walking over the frontier from Mexico's Tijuana Beach to Imperial Beach, California, during low tide.

The US government's latest King Canute-like effort will make an existing fence longer, higher, tougher to scale and, officials say, more resilient to the tide.
'Operational need'

Border officials note that during November officers caught several undocumented migrants swimming in the Pacific Ocean or landing ashore in small fishing boats.

"There is a clear operational need for this development," says Michael Hance, field operation supervisor with the border patrol in the San Diego sector.

"The southern side of the border is densely populated and in the past many people found an easy way into the US through these beaches. We need physical infrastructure as well as border agents in the area."

But critics say the $4.3m (£2.79m) extension is unnecessary, noting that heavy surveillance near San Diego has driven most of the migrant flow eastward into the Arizona desert. And environmental activists fear the heavy metal barrier sunk into the ocean will harm marine life.

Meeting place

That physical infrastructure has interrupted the sandy landscape of the Tijuana and San Diego beaches since the early 1990s, when the first fence was built to run 22km inland from the Pacific shore.

On the beach, the fence is made of iron bars sunk into the sand, and further inland, the bars are replaced by graffiti-marred corrugated iron sheets, bent and torn by the marine wind.

The sections extending into the surf remain under construction, and today a visitor sees a pier constructed to allow heavy kit to pound support piles into the sand.

On the southern side of the wall, the Playa de Tijuana teems on weekends with families from the poor neighbourhoods along the border.

The beach is also a meeting place for friends and loved ones on either side of the border. Here, people chat and hug through the fence.

The latest $4.3m renovation, just under way, will extend the fence further into the ocean and increase its height to about 18ft (5.4m) from about 13ft, allowing it to protrude above the surface no matter the tide.

The steel poles holding up the wall will be treated with an anti-corrosion coating. The poles will also be given a slick coating to make them harder to climb.

The wall is scheduled to be completed in March and is expected to last 30 years.
'Symbolic move'

For all the expense and effort the government is throwing into fencing off the ocean, statistics show arrests in the area are already at an all-time low.

Border patrol agents detained 68,000 undocumented immigrants in 2010 in the San Diego sector, down from 630,000 in 1986, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency statistics.

Local immigration activists put the decline down to a steady increase in manned patrols and surveillance over the last six years.

"We don't understand why they are spending so much money here: it is just a symbolic move to say that they are actually doing something to prevent undocumented immigration," says Pedro Rios of the San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium.

"The new surf fence is being built in what is probably the area where the rate of border crossings has gone down most dramatically."
Wildlife affected

Furthermore, environmental organisations say the metal barrier in the water is an invasion of the ocean that will most certainly take its toll on the local fauna.

"The wall could block the circulation of species, especially surface marine species," says Matt Clark, spokesman for Defenders of Wildlife.

Dan Millis, borderlands team coordinator at the Sierra Club, says sections of the wall erected in the Arizona desert have had "a major effect on the migration patterns of desert species".

Architect Teddy Cruz of the University of California at San Diego predicts the fence will increase sedimentation and flooding in the Tijuana estuary.

"There are natural canyons in the region that cross the border without following political conventions," Mr Cruz says. "The effect will be worse for those http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthat live in settlements on the Mexican side of the border, the waste from these settlements flows towards the estuary blocking water circulation."

The Border Patrol argues the surf fence's environmental impact will be minimal.

"Our experts have done environmental assessments and they did not find any evidence that the habitat will be damaged," says Mr Hance.

"We do what we have to do. And this project, both in terms of design and investment, is appropriate for the safety requirements in the San Diego area."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16164451

U.S. to extend border fence 300 feet into Pacific

Los Angeles Times
November 25, 2011
by Richard Marosi

Reporting from Imperial Beach— Pounding surf and corrosive sea air have stymied efforts for years to erect a sturdy fence at the westernmost edge of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Now, the U.S. Border Patrol is trying again, with a $4.3-million project that would extend a nearly quarter-mile barrier 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean and remake one of the more scenic spots on the border.

When completed early next year, a steel fence 18 feet tall will replace a teetering, gap-riddled barrier that did little to discourage people from crossing back and forth on a wide beach linking Tijuana and Imperial Beach.

The "Surf Fence Project" comes as the federal government winds down barrier-building projects that have fortified about 670 miles of the frontier in recent years. Fences have been built atop sand dunes and mountain slopes, through remote deserts and urban streetscapes.

Fortifying the border where it plunges into the Pacific, however, presents unique logistical challenges. Before construction even begins, a government contractor must build a long pier to hold a crane, which will pound the fence posts into the sand. On a recent day, people on the Tijuana side of the beach marveled at the temporary structure, which is under construction, mistakenly believing it would be used for fishing or for docking boats.

Though border fencing efforts have long drawn criticism, no significant opposition has emerged for the surf project, mainly because one kind of barrier or another has existed here since the early 1990s. A fence is necessary, border officials said, to block a gap that opens when the waters recede at low tide.

In the late 1980s and early '90s, hundreds of illegal immigrants would cross at a time and head toward the distant San Diego skyline. More recently, the beach became a popular spot for demonstrators protesting illegal immigration policies. Last year, a group of deported immigrants walked across the line in the sand at the border, in a symbolic protest march. Some of them threw rocks and bottles, said U.S. authorities.

"It still has the potential to be very dangerous, as beautiful as it is," said Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Bruce Parks.

Previous fences couldn't withstand the tidal battering. A barrier constructed of oil-drilling pipes in the early 1990s quickly corroded. Waves washed away some of the steel posts, and others broke off. In 2006, U.S. Marine divers tried to erect a fence made of train rails by maneuvering the rails in the water so they could be pounded in by a pile driver.

It was difficult and dangerous because the rails would swing around at the end of the crane boom as the divers tried to manually place them next to one another in the surf.

For the latest effort, U.S. authorities have turned to a private contractor, Granite Construction Co., which recently built fencing at the base of Otay Mountain east of San Diego. The material used this time will be sturdier: 6-inch steel piping, coated with rust-proof material. The work, Parks said, comes with a 30-year warranty.

Longtime beachgoers think the agency better keep the warranty paperwork. Netza Tapia, 40, said he remembers the days when he would slip through the corroded section of the fence to continue his family walks on the Imperial Beach side of the beach. Jonathan Parra and his friends used to breach the wave-battered gaps regularly to play soccer on Imperial Beach's relatively empty stretch of sand.

The sea, Parra said, doesn't recognize borders. "The strength of the ocean will eventually knock the fence down," Parra said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-border-fence-20111124,0,6662761.story

2 illegal immigrants die in San Diego-area maritime accidents

One is found dead inside a smuggling boat washed ashore at Pacific Beach and the other dies in an attempt to swim around a border fence.

Los Angeles Times
October 6, 2011
by Richard Marosi

Reporting from San Diego -- An illegal immigrant was found dead inside a smuggling boat that came ashore at San Diego's Pacific Beach and another died in a failed attempt to swim around a border fence in separate maritime incidents since Tuesday, according to federal authorities.

Early Wednesday morning, U.S. Border Patrol agents inspecting a 16-foot panga boat near Law Street at Pacific Beach discovered a dead Mexican man and another unidentified person. Following footprints along the beach, the agents found 13 additional illegal immigrants hiding in a residential area.

Eleven of the immigrants were hospitalized and released. One man suffering from dehydration and hypothermia remained in the hospital, according to Border Patrol spokesman Scott Simon.

The group of nine men and six women were all Mexican nationals, he said. Authorities are investigating whether a smuggler also was aboard the boat. The immigrant's cause of death has yet to be determined.

The skiff appeared to be caught in turbulent waters during the trip from Baja California. Smuggling groups often depart from as far away as Ensenada on journeys in rickety boats that can take 12 hours or more.

In another recent incident, seven immigrants were rescued a mile off San Diego's Mission Beach after their boat broke down Sunday.

Smugglers show no signs of letting up on their maritime trafficking attempts. Border authorities arrested 633 illegal immigrants in 183 maritime incidents during the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Illegal immigrants also continue trying on their own. On Tuesday night, a 43-year-old man died attempting to swim around a border fence that extends into the breakers at San Diego County's Border Field State Park.

He was not wearing a wet suit or flotation device, Simon said. Two other illegal immigrants who tried to swim around the border fence were arrested.

Over the last year, four people have died in maritime smuggling incidents, including two immigrants who died while their boat tried to land at Torrey Pines State Beach, north of San Diego.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-1006-smuggling-boat-20111006,0,7261822.story

Friendship Park At U.S.-Mexico Border Turns 40

KPBS
August 18, 2011
by Jill Replogle

SAN DIEGO — On August 18, 1971, then-first lady Pat Nixon reached her hand toward a barbed wire fence separating the U.S.-Mexico border and greeted residents on the other side.

The event happened during the inauguration of Friendship Park, which butts up against the border fence south of San Diego. But in recent years, the park has become a subject of controversy.

A triple-layer fence — built in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks —now runs through the park, making cross-border handshakes impossible.

Jamie Gates, one of the founders of the organization Friends of Friendship Park, said the fence has ruined the bi-national nature of the park.

“In the process of building the new fence, they really destroyed what has for decades and decades and decades been a place where families have gathered,” Gates said.

The group is working with U.S. border officials on a redesign that would allow for cross-border gatherings without compromising security. The plan features a 60-foot retractable gate, which could be opened and closed by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Friends of Friendship Park will celebrate the park’s 40th anniversary on Saturday. Activities will include a cross-border salsa lesson, a bi-national music jam session, and testimonies from families who have used the park as a meeting place.

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/aug/18/friendship-park-turns-forty/

Park redesign could relieve tensions at US-Mexico border

UPI
April 14, 2011
by Beth Elderkin

A possible redesign of Friendship Park, a small patch of land separated by two eight-foot high black metal fences on the national border between San Diego, Calif. and Tijuana, Mexico, has become the center of a heated international debate.

Dedicated in 1971 to bi-national unity between the United States and Mexico by former first lady Pat Nixon, the small section of protected Border Field State Park is officially referred to as Friendship Circle, but more commonly known as Friendship Park.The area has sparked tense cross-border conflicts between groups who wish to open the park for full bi-national access, and U.S. Border patrol, which prioritizes national security.

Over the past five years, increased security by the United States Border Patrol has restricted park access to U.S. residents and limited cross-cultural contact.

But after years of cross-cultural tension, a compromise on a redesign of the park appears to be within reach. In February, Border Patrol agreed to consider a design that would create more open spaces, but still serve security needs.

"(The redesign) doesn't make the park feel like you're walking into a prison," said Jill Holslin, a member of Friends of Friendship Park, one of the groups advocating more open space.

Friendship Park was once a frequently-visited spot by people living in the U.S. who wanted to communicate with friends and family in Mexico. People gathered on both sides of the fence to share picnics, sometimes even “sneaking tamales across the fence,” Holslin said.

A 1994 measure limited access to the border fence, but it wasn't until 2006 that Friendship Park was severely impacted. That's when Pres. George W. Bush approved the Secure Fence Act, which increased border security and initialized the construction of a secondary fence. That fence, completed in 2009, was built about 100 feet away from the original border fence, creating a buffer space that prohibits cross-border access from Friendship Park, which lies between the two fences.

“[Before], it was minimal problems or obstacles as far as border patrol or access to the area,” said Daniel Watman of Border Encuentro, which is fighting for increased park access. “When they started bringing in the secondary wall, that’s when it created quite an obstacle for us.”

Ever since the secondary fence was completed, access to the main park area is only allowed on the weekends between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and only 25 to 30 people are allowed inside at a time, for a maximum of 30 minutes. Friendship Park is reachable through Border Field State Park by car, or via a 40-minute walk along Imperial Beach.

Physical contact is prohibited and border patrol officers have the option to restrain suspicious people within 100 feet of the fence. Border patrol agent Ronnie Harden said the primary reason is to prevent items from being passed through the slats and over the fence.

“It’s so easy for them to pass things that are contraband or things that can be used on either side, like illegal documents,” he said.

Park access advocacy groups, including Friends of Friendship Park, No Border Wall and Border Encuentro, are working for increased access to the park, particularly for people who want to communicate with family and friends on the other side of the border fence.

According to Border Patrol Public Affairs Office supervisor Steven Pitts, the park redesign, if approved, could begin construction as early as June, and would take approximately three to six months to complete.

The changes to Friendship Park could include an area around the boundary that could expand to up to 60 feet, depending on the size of the crowd at any given event, Watman said.

The idea of this is “to open up the entrance to this kind of no-man’s land between the two lands,” said Public Art and Architecture architect and Friendship Park designer James Brown.

U.S. visitors would be able to walk right up to the fence and interact with those on the other side. This would be made possible through a metal reinforced mesh fence. The mesh would be tight enough to make physical contact impossible, said Border Patrol Public Affairs Office representative Justin De La Torre.

Harden, who works the midnight to 8 a.m. shift, said the secondary fence and added border security is necessary to the safety of the U.S. national border; especially late at night when illegal border crossings are more likely to occur.

“People who cross at this time of night aren’t trying to see their families. They’re trying to get somewhere,” he said.

Holslin agrees that cross-border security is important in maintaining order along the border:

“We are not working against the Border Patrol," she said. "We want to work with them"

Holslin said increasing park access could actually help improve security along the border, since a higher number of visitors would prevent drug cartels from overtaking the area and increasing crime.

Watman said a redesigned Friendship Park is a way to not only maintain a safe environment, but do so in a way that symbolizes the bi-national friendship former first lady Nixon celebrated 40 years ago.

“I don’t feel like it’s enforcement versus friendship. I believe they both can be present,” he said. “They kind of both need to be present.”

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/1969/12/31/Park-redesign-could-relieve-tensions-at-US-Mexico-border/UPIU-9751301078945/

Rep. Hunter proposes more border fencing

San Diego Union-Tribune
March 15, 2011
by Elizabeth Aguilera

A bill introduced in Congress today could lead to an additional 350 miles of fencing along the southwest border and would require the Department of Homeland Security to report to Congress when apprehension activity climbs 40 percent year over year, if it is approved.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, authored the bill, titled “Unlawful Border Entry Prevention Act,” in response to a Government Accountability Report that found 44 percent of the southwest border is under “operational control” and 15 percent is totally secure. The legislation is co-sponsored by Republicans Brian Bilbray, Solana Beach, Ed Royce, Fullerton, and Ted Poe, Texas, and North Carolina Democrats Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre.

“Despite considerable gains in recent years, the Southwest border is nowhere near secure,” Hunter said. “This not only presents a significant risk to U.S. national security, but also undermines the safety of communities on both sides of the border.”

The bill would need approval in the House of Representatives as well as the Senate and the signature of President Barack Obama to become law.

Hunter's bill also requires Homeland Security to report to Congress if apprehensions increase 40 percent from one year to next in any given sector along the southwest border. The report must include a plan for gaining “operational control.”

Apprehensions are at an all time low across the southwest border, an indicator, officials say, of increased security and a decrease in attempts by people to cross illegally. Last year Border Patrol reported 463,000 apprehensions, a decrease of 36 percent over the previous two years.

The GAO report “Preliminary Observations on Border Control Measures for the Southwest Border,” released last month, found the Border Patrol has various levels of control along the border and responds best to unlawful activity after illegal entry into the U.S. is made and not on the immediate border.

The government’s analysis found that of the 873 miles Border Patrol reports are under operational control about 129 miles are classified as controlled. More than half of the southwest border is “managed,” which means response to activity occurs after illegal entry. The southwest border encompasses nearly 2,000 miles.

In San Diego nearly 90 percent of border miles are under “operational control,” according to the report. Yuma reported 100 percent operational control and Tucson and El Paso reported around 70 percent operational control. Marfa, Del Rio, Laredo and the Rio Grande Valley reported less than 40 percent of operation control, according to GAO.

As of Dec. 2010, 649 miles of pedestrian and vehicle type fencing has been erected. DHS was required to identify the fencing locations prior to Dec. 2008.

While the GAO report is accurate, according to Border Patrol officials, it does not take into account collaborations with other agencies on both sides of the border. It also uses limited definitions of terms created for personnel but not necessarily for outside review or understanding, said Deputy Chief Ronald D. Vitiello at the time the report was released.

Vitiello said the terms in the report such as “operation control” are internal measures and may be misunderstood by those outside the agency. Operational control as it is defined by Border Patrol involves: detection of persons crossing the border, identification of the person, classification of the level of threat, respond and resolve.

The GAO also outlined a plan by the Border Patrol to revamp how it assesses outcomes in an effort to make the terms more universal. There will be a gap in reported outcomes next year while the system is being re-purposed, according to the report.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/mar/15/rep-hunter-proposes-more-border-fencing/

Border Patrol Plans Three New Projects in Border Field State Park

Imperial Beach Patch
February 11, 2011
by Greg Graziosi

The Border Patrol held an open house Wednesday evening at the Marina Vista Community Center to exhibit three renovation projects slated to begin this year.

Greg Gephart, program manager for tactical infrastructure for the U.S. Border Patrol, was on-hand to explain the nature of the projects, the goals desired and the background, environmental and design details of the undertakings.

If the changes are approved, the Border Patrol will begin a proposal period in March, then sign deals with private contractors for Friendship Park projects by April.

The Border Patrol wants to see construction for all three projects start this summer.

The Replacement of the Friendship Park Pedestrian Border Fence

The Friendship Park project drew a great deal of attention at the open house, as it directly affects visitors to the park, and in part due to a press conference held by the Friends of Friendship Park on the lawn of the community center Wednesday evening to promote an alternative re-design.

The proposed changes to Friendship Park—a binational park where people on both sides of the border can meet one another—centers around the re-construction of the pedestrian border fence, which the Border Patrol said no longer meets security standards.

This fence will be replaced with 965 feet of bollard fence on either side of Friendship Circle, the area of the park where those on the American and Mexican sides of the park can get closest to each other.

A bollard fence design is a series of large capped poles positioned tightly together to block anyone from squeezing through, but at the same time not make a solid fence, which can easier to climb.

At Friendship Circle, a 50-foot picket fence with mesh between the fences will be installed, allowing for a clear line of sight between friends and family visiting at the circle.

Other changes include removing an adjustable, wrought-iron fence in the walkway area, allowing for less constricted access for people entering Friendship Circle from the Mexican side and installing a canopy over Friendship Circle.

Replacement of the San Diego Surf Fence

The surf fence replacement project will be directly tied into the Friendship Park project, with construction on both being slated for June of this year.

The San Diego surf fence, which runs along the border and 320 feet into the Pacific Ocean, was built between 1993 and 1994 and consists of steel pipes driven into the ground.

Over the past several years, corrosion and vandalism have brought sections of the fence into various states of disrepair, the Border Patrol said. The new fence they propose would be a similar pole design but made of metals that will last longer than steel. The fence will be bollard style, which will allow some marine creatures to pass through the fence without trouble, but still restrict illegal crossings. To ensure dredging or land reclamation is not necessary, the project will be carried out from a barge stationed just off shore.

The Border Patrol has listed its intentions to be environmentally conscious during this project, citing it will obtain appropriate permits from federal environmental authorities and plan to conduct impact assessments for things like land use, geology, cultural and historical resources and protected species.

The Addition of an All-Weather Road at Bunker Hill

The construction of an all-weather road at Bunker Hill in Border Field State Park is proposed to begin in June of this year as well.

Bunker Hill is home to World War II-era bunkers, and separates the east and west sides of the Border Patrol’s surveillance area. The proposed all-weather road would consist of two segments, the western half which would span approximately 1,000 feet, and an eastern segment, spanning about 1,400 feet. The design is meant to take special care to maximize the Border Patrol’s ability to effectively police the border and leave the WWII bunkers undisturbed. Lighting along the road will also be added for extra security.

This project will not be offered to private contractors, but will be incorporated as part of a military project.

In each project, the Border Patrol made clear their intentions to seek out accountability and permits from environmental authorities.

A statement made by the Border Patrol explained the agency is “committed to consultation with the Department of the Interior, the Department of Agriculture, states, local governments, Native American tribes and property owners in the United States to minimize the impact on the environment, culture, commerce and quality of life for the communities and residents located near the sites at which such tactical infrastructure is to be constructed.”

Each project falls under the Imperial Beach Border Patrol station’s territory, which extends from the Pacific Ocean to Otay Mesa.

To learn more, or offer comments or suggestions for these projects to the Border Patrol, visit:

http://cbp.gov/xp/cgov/border_security/ti/ti_docs/sector/san_diego/san_diego_tac_proj.xml

http://cbp.gov/linkhandler/cgov/border_security/ti/ti_docs/sector/san_diego/circle_draft.ctt/circle_draft.pdf


http://imperialbeach.patch.com/articles/border-patrol-plans-three-new-projects-in-border-field-state-park

Dueling plans for Friendship Park on display

Sign on San Diego
February 8, 2011
by Elizabeth Aguilera

Friendship Park activists and the Border Patrol will unveil opposing design plans for the area around Friendship Circle on the border Wednesday.

Border Patrol plans include replacement of primary fencing and no changes in public access, while the Friends of Friendship Park's plan includes seating, landscaping and increased visiting hours for the public.

The Border Patrol is hosting the open house from 5:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at the Marina Vista Community Center, 1075 8th St. in Imperial Beach.

Public access to the park, on the border near the most southwestern edge of the county, has been limited since 2009 when the Department of Homeland Security completed secondary fencing in the area that locked Friendship Circle and much of the park between the primary and secondary fencing.

The Border Patrol’s proposed design, called Surf Fence Project, would replace 1,200 feet of fencing from Friendship Circle to the surf. It will be made of “shade structure,” a slat-like fencing with spaces in between the slats, said Steven Pitts, spokesman for the Border Patrol.

Pitts would not comment on the Friends' proposal. He said the Border Patrol is focused on operational goals and safety of both the public and agents. Before the installation of secondary fencing, he said, the area was known as a place where agents were accosted with rocks and smuggling was rampant.

Members of the public are only allowed in the park on weekends between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. for 30 minutes at a time. Only 25 people are allowed in at the same time. An additional barrier erected near the primary fencing keeps visitors from touching fingers or whispering updates to one another.

Since the changes were implemented, Friends of Friendship Park, a coalition of volunteers, have been pushing for increased access and a better design that would give the area between the fences a more park-like feel. The coalition’s design by San Diego architect James Brown, principal at Public Architecture and Planning, is meant to create a more inviting atmosphere.

Before the change in 2009, visitors could walk up to the fence, the monument and along the beachline. Guests to the park would visit with friends or family on the other side, touch fingers and chat through the fence. Some would tote beach chairs and set up picnics along the fence.

“That experience has virtually been eliminated,” said Jill Holslin, a leader of the Friends group. “You feel like you are entering into a prison on visiting day. It’s a highly militarized environment.”

Pitts said the Army Corp of Engineers is reviewing the Friends design and if it is approved it will go before Customs and Border Protection leadership for a final decision.

The design created by Brown allows public access up to primary mesh fencing at three points, the binational garden, the foundry monument and the beach area. The secondary fencing entries in the design would be flexible enough to be opened wide for regular park access and to be shut down for security reasons, according to the plans.

“You still have the fence, there is no negating that, but it takes away a little bit of that feeling of being in a holding cell,” Brown said. “We take the responsibility to create a park that fulfills current Border Patrol needs very seriously at the same time designing a park that allows enough flexibility that it can have a life in the future when there is not so much security around it.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/feb/08/dualing-plans-for-friendship-park-on-display-wedne/

U.S. Uncovers Major Cross-Border Drug Tunnel

National Public Radio
November 4, 2010
by Amy Isackson

U.S. and Mexican authorities confiscated approximately 30 tons of marijuana on Wednesday. It is the largest seizure ever along the San Diego border, and one of the largest in the U.S.

Law enforcement officials made the discovery after a semi truck leaving a warehouse in Otay Mesa, Calif., caught the attention of authorities, who followed the truck 80 miles north to a border checkpoint.

"In that tractor trailer was 10 tons of marijuana," said John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A man and his wife inside the truck were arrested.

When authorities went back to the warehouse, located 300 yards from the Mexican border fence, they found an additional 20 tons of marijuana along with a large rectangular hole leading to an underground tunnel.

"Some of these packages were out in the open and just laying on the floor here," said ICE special agent Joe Garcia. "You have to be on your hands and knees to get in [the tunnel]. There's ventilation, a little bit of a primitive rail system in there and there's some lighting."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131075623

We All Fight the Wall

San Diego Reader
March 21, 2010
by Carolyn Grace Matteo

U.S./Mexico border problems and their effect on the Tijuana Estuary was the focus of the March 19 Sierra Club’s meeting in Hillcrest.

According to a Sierra Club press release, laws protecting the environment, archaeological sites, religious freedom, and cultural concerns were waived so border-wall construction could proceed.

“Our committee has been fighting the border wall for a long time,” said Jean Costa, international committee representative. “The Sierra Club supports HR4321 because it prohibits construction of more border walls and the breaking of environmental and community protection laws....

“In Texas, it went right through people’s land. But, you won’t find the wall in any fancy resorts. They build the wall where they think people don’t have the power to fight it. This bill is the beginning of solving a very complicated problem, the roots of which aren’t being addressed. I urge you to support it.”

Dr. Mike McCoy said, “The [construction of] border fence between the U.S. and Mexico called Operation Gatekeeper began in 1994. There were no permits. They just built it. The big problem with these fences is that the animals that migrate north — jaguar, deer, reptiles, and other mammals — separate gene pools on both sides. You decrease the biological capability of that organism to survive; this especially impacts bighorn sheep."

McCoy considers the border wall a tribute to the politics of fear. “Injustice, economic disparity, and the inability to distribute wealth and opportunity equitably are at the root of the wall.”

http://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/mar/21/we-all-fight-wall/

Contractors association honors local company

February 28, 2010
The Desert Sun
by Monica Torline and Debra Gruszecki

Granite Construction Co.'s Southern California Region office in Indio has just been notified that the design-build project, “Monument 250,” is a finalist in the Associated General Contractors of California Constructor Awards gala at The Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco.

Granite's handling of the roadway and primary border barrier fence is being distinguished in the “Meeting the Challenge” category for difficult jobs in the heavy engineering classification.

Traversing mountainous terrain, the multimillion-dollar project handled out of the Indio location with a contractor and subcontractor team of 75 led to construction of 3.5 miles of steel fence, 7,754 cubic yards of concrete, 24,000 tons of native rock crushed on site, 500,000 cubic yards of moved earth, about a half-mile of drainage pipe and five large canyon bridge crossings.

Business development manager Lee Haven said the project in the San Ysidro Mountains, primarily in the Otay Mesa Wilderness area, took 385 working days to complete and dealt with conditions so severe the initial job walk inspection had to be done in a helicopter.

Among those traveling to the final judging event will be Granite's Southern California regional manager Pat Kelly; construction manager Brad Williams; and project manager Bob Ramage.

“We're very excited about it,'' Haven said. “Just making it to the finals is a big deal.”

http://www.mydesert.com/article/20100228/BUSINESS02/2270356/1003/business/Contractors-association-honors-local-company

$57.7-million fence added to an already grueling illegal immigration route

February 15, 2009
Los Angeles Times
by Richard Marosi

Some question the cost, effectiveness and environmental effect of erecting a fence on Otay Mountain, where those who hiked three days up a steep, arid peak were often met by border agents anyway.

Reporting from San Diego - The border barrier dips and curves, zigs and zags, hugging the mountain's contours like a slimmed-down version of the Great Wall of China.

Among the costliest stretch of fencing ever built on the U.S.-Mexico border, the 3.6-mile wall of steel completed last fall is meant to block trafficking routes over Otay Mountain, just east of San Diego.

People seeking to enter the country illegally have hiked the scrub-covered, tarantula-infested peak for years, trying to get to roads leading to San Diego.

"We're no longer conceding this area to smugglers," said Jerome C. Conlin, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman.

But critics are bewildered. Why, they ask, would people determined to scale a rugged, 3,500-foot peak be deterred by an 18-foot-high fence? They also point out that the Department of Homeland Security deemed it unnecessary in 2006.

"I think it's a Bush-era boondoggle that will have almost no consequence in terms of stemming the flow of immigration," said Char Miller, director of the environmental analysis program at Pomona College. "It was a political decision that took in no account of the environment itself, and in the process damages what was once a pretty remarkable landscape."

The $57.7-million project is one segment in the massive expansion of border infrastructure approved by Congress during George W. Bush's presidency. Homeland Security has erected fencing in small towns, remote valleys and high-desert mesas from the Pacific Ocean to Texas.

At about $16 million a mile, the Otay Mountain barrier cost about four times as much as similar border fencing built during this expansion, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The Border Patrol's San Diego sector was already one of the country's most heavily fortified frontiers before the mountain fence was constructed, with about 40 of the sector's 60 miles lined with vehicle or pedestrian barriers.

The fencing shifted immigrant flows to remote areas in the backcountry east of San Diego. But some migrants decided to climb Otay Mountain because of its proximity to a warehouse district in San Diego and its easy access on the Mexican side, where the Tijuana-Tecate toll road lies only a few hundred yards away.

Immigrants dropped off at staging grounds off the toll road headed up steep trails into the U.S. Their hikes through canyons and over the arid peak could take up to three days. With limited road access on the mountain, agents simply waited for people to descend to make arrests.

The lack of fencing did not seem to be a problem, said then-U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Richard Kite, interviewed in a 2006 article in the Arizona Daily Star. At Otay Mountain, "you simply don't need a fence. It's such harsh terrain it's difficult to walk, let alone drive," Kite said. "There's no reason to disrupt the land when the land itself is a physical barrier."

The agency said it changed course after reevaluating conditions in the area. Daryl Reed, a current Border Patrol spokesman, said strategies are in constant flux depending on quickly shifting migrant flows and smuggler activity.

"As we continue in our mission, we're always reevaluating situations," Reed said. "We're always going to adapt and change."

One analyst suggested that pressure from Congress to complete about 700 miles of fence led federal officials to approve some questionable projects.

"There's no question that there's tactical justification for certain fencing, but when you set up a target like that, it inevitably means that they're going to build fencing where the tactical justification is weak, and this sounds like one of those places," said Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

But others doubted that border authorities would spend resources in an area that didn't need it.

"If there were other better places to build fencing, then I'm confident the Border Patrol would build it there," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

When the federal government broke ground last year, environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, said the project would damage the Otay Mountain Wilderness. Portions of the fence and the 5-mile access road lie in the federally protected area.

The federal government, trying to expedite construction of border fencing, waived more than 30 environmental laws in 2008, including the Wilderness Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and others that environmentalists said applied to the Otay area.

Contractors had to cut roads, remove boulders, bulldoze hillsides and remove about 530,000 cubic yards of rock to build the Otay fence, which consists of steel posts 4 inches apart topped with metal plates.

It's not clear whether the fence has been a deterrent.

Since the barrier's completion in October, illegal activity has declined and there have been few signs of people trying to cut or breach the fence, authorities say.

"Having this fence here is definitely going to slow them down. . . . It increases our probability of catching them," said Conlin, the Border Patrol spokesman.

But others say the fence's effectiveness hasn't been truly tested because fewer immigrants have been attempting to cross anywhere on the border due to the economic slowdown.

The funding, they said, could have been better spent hiring more agents or building infrastructure in other areas.

When the economy improves, the mountain will once again draw immigrants, fence or no fence, said Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee in San Diego.

"It seems to me, if someone is able to climb the mountains in the Otay Wilderness, a 15-foot wall will not make a difference," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-fence15-2010feb15,0,5691127.story

La Posada at border fence

San Diego Union-Tribune
December 14, 2009
by J Harry Jones


IMPERIAL BEACH — Faith groups from the United States and Mexico gathered yesterday afternoon at Border Field State Park in what was both a religious celebration and a political statement.

The 16th annual La Posada Sin Fronteras was a re-enactment of the biblical story of Mary and Joseph, who were forced to seek shelter after the birth of Christ and were eventually welcomed into a stranger’s home. Participants from both countries compared the biblical tale to the struggle migrants face trying to enter the United States.

One of the messages of the story, the idea of welcoming strangers — and immigrants — is under attack in our times, making the binational celebration even more significant, organizers said. Today, families on both sides of the border are separated by immigration policy and can no longer meet, even at the border fence, organizers said.

This was the first time the celebration was held since a second border fence was constructed earlier this year. The participants were not allowed to touch or exchange gifts with those who had gathered in Mexico for the celebration.

About 150 people, including many members of the media, gathered on the Mexico side of the fence, while on the U.S. side about half that number were present.

U.S. Border Patrol agents allowed 25 people at a time to go through the first fence to the Friendship Monument, which is situated to the north of the Tijuana bullfighting ring and a lighthouse. The remainder were forced to stay back behind the second fence, roughly 100 feet away.

“I want to remind you that while there are few people here, there are many watching and praying,” said Tijuana’s Roman Catholic Archbishop Rafael Romo Muñoz, speaking from Mexico. “Many are praying for friendship and solidarity between our two countries.”

Veterans of earlier celebrations remembered how people would share tacos, hold hands and exchange trinkets through the fence.

“This is a sad occasion on this beautiful winter day,” said Christian Ramirez of the American Friends Service Committee from the U.S. side. “We friends are not allowed to touch each other or exchange food and candy as in the past. This is ridiculous. This is the promise of change we heard a year ago?”

Along the outer fence, dozens of luminarias were set up and lighted at dusk. Each bag, containing a lighted candle, represented a migrant killed while trying to cross the border. Many of the dead were young, and most were identified only as “unknown male.”

One of the organizers of the first Posada Without Borders in 1993 was Roberto Martinez, the migrant activist who died earlier this year. Ramirez said Martinez is “greatly missed” and was undoubtedly looking down on all yesterday afternoon.

Those on the U.S. side had to hike through mud and then on the beach for about two miles because the main road to the friendship monument was flooded. Few seemed to mind the inconvenience.

During the gathering, Christmas carols were sung in both English and Spanish. Although Americans were not allowed to give anything to the Mexicans, at one point bundles of candy came flying over the fence from the Mexico side.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/14/la-posada-border-fence/

Feds: Plants There, Just Look Harder

Voice of San Diego
December 3, 2009
by Rob Davis

The barren, vegetation-free hillsides in Border Field State Park created by a new 3.5-mile section of the U.S.-Mexico border fence are neither barren nor vegetation-free, the federal government claims.

In a recent letter to U.S. Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's chief says the denuded hills near the Tijuana Estuary have plants growing on them.

You just can't see them, he wrote.

Because the plants being grown on the new hillsides are native species, wrote Jayson Ahern, the agency's acting chief, "the existing re-vegetated areas are currently dormant and brown ... and, thus, difficult to see from afar."

That does not accurately reflect what I've seen in the park. When I visited in mid-October, I saw a few plants growing on a single hill. Other new hills were barren, save for rows of straw bales.

It was easy to see from afar that no plants were growing. It was even easier to see up close. I stood on the hills. Plants were not growing. Federal contractors working for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had sprayed a wet, pulpy seed mix -- called "hydroseed" -- on the ground, but never irrigated.

I called Clay Phillips, superintendent of Border Field State Park, to check whether plants had suddenly grown in the last month.

"Nothing magical has happened," he said. "There is a native plant seed mix (on the ground), but we've never seen any growth there."

Ahern, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection official, wrote in his letter that "moderate revegetation has actually occurred and is progressing well." He said the federal government purposely didn't water the seeds it spread on the hills so it could mimic normal climatic conditions -- dry summers, wet winters.

I asked Bruce Hanson, a restoration ecologist for Edaw, a local consulting firm, whether that was a good idea. He said it is. Unless a full-fledged irrigation system was installed, Hanson said it's better to wait for natural rainfall, which helps seeds germinate better. The salt content is lower in rain than in water sprayed from trucks, which the government is now using.

But using seeds alone is "window-dressing," Hanson said. The best way to restore degraded habitat is to use a mix of seeds and transplant already-established plants and cactus, he said.

"A lot of species" -- such as the Baja birdbush, a plant whose northern range extends only to the border -- "never come up from seed," he said. Instead, generic shrubs grow, such as purple needlegrass, which is found throughout the state.

"You end up with a different plant community than what should be there," Hanson said. "Hydroseed is not going to be representative of what was out there."

http://voiceofsandiego.org/environment/muck/article_f7c322e6-e070-11de-91d3-001cc4c03286.html

Border tunnel, with elevator, discovered

San Diego Union-Tribune
December 2, 2009
by Sandra Dibble

A cross-border tunnel equipped with an elevator and lighting and electrical systems was discovered Wednesday just west of the Otay Mesa Point of Entry, federal authorities said.

Acting on a tip received by U.S. officials, Mexican authorities found the tunnel and arrested at least 12 people inside, authorities said.

The tunnel, which did not yet have an opening on the U.S. side, was about 1,000 feet long, 860 feet of which were in the United States. It was about 90 to 100 feet deep in some areas.

No arrests have been made in the United States. Officials estimate the tunnel may have been under construction for about two years.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mexican soldiers could be seen guarding a warehouse in an industrial area located about one kilometer west of the Otay Mesa border crossing. The building, made out of blocks and painted beige, abuts the border fence.

On the U.S. side, tractor trailers can be seen driving next to the fence. The nearest building is several hundred feet away.

About 120 cross-border tunnels have been discovered and dismantled along the Southwest border. Smugglers have been digging under the border for decades to avoid detection. Officials said they have seen a spike since 9/11 when heightened enforcement along the border forced smugglers to come up with alternative ways to move contraband.

The tunnels have also become increasingly sophisticated, with elevators to lower large amounts of contraband and ventilation systems so workers can spend hours underground.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/dec/02/border-tunnel-found-west-of-otay-mesa/?imw=Y

An openness to border fence: Divider boundless as visual forum for political expression

San Diego Union-Tribune
November 30, 2009
by Leslie Berestein

In Cold War-era Berlin, artists and others who decried the wall dividing the city into east and west used its concrete expanse as a broad canvas for political and personal expression, over the years turning its gray surface into multihued graffiti art.

And in Tijuana today, those who protest U.S. immigration policies have the border fence.

In the nearly two decades since fencing began to appear on the U.S.-Mexico border between San Diego and Tijuana, the fence has become its own political canvas of sorts, with stretches of it serving as a backdrop for installations that have included thousands of wooden crosses, painted coffins, paintings of skulls and of doors that go nowhere, save for the desert.

The paintings and installations, the most recent a collection of 5,100 wooden crosses hung from the fence at Playas de Tijuana last month, are memorials to those who have died in attempts to traverse the border illegally, most of them through rough terrain to the east.

The fence also has acted as a billboard for political candidates, as a structure on which to affix screened images for a city art exhibit a few years ago, as a place for taggers’ graffiti and for the quieter musings of would-be migrants who have scratched their names and where they came from onto the rusty metal.

Unlike on the Berlin Wall, where much of the art was spontaneous and anonymous, most of the protest art on the border fence has been planned and orchestrated by border activists and local artists. To the east in Nogales, Ariz., an artists’ collective has been responsible for many of the pieces there, including metal sculptures and murals affixed to the fence. Still, those who have studied the phenomenon of political boundaries and art say there are universal similarities in what prompts the expression.

“Borders tend not to be joyous places,” said Justinian Jampol, a historian and museum director in Los Angeles who has studied the Berlin Wall and the art it inspired. “Borders tend to be where people are separated. They tend to be points of contention. Artists are naturally drawn to spaces that have an aura around them, a tension, that is already endowed with meaning.”

For an event this month celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Jampol’s Wende Museum, which is dedicated to Cold War history and culture, set up an 80-foot “wall” across a major Los Angeles boulevard and invited artists and taggers to paint it. He said he was struck by how often the U.S.-Mexico border came up as a theme.

Other border barriers have prompted similar expression, said Guillermo Alonso Meneses, a cultural anthropologist with the Colegio de la Frontera Norte in Baja California. This includes the new West Bank barrier in Israel, which has been marked in protest. Even the fences separating the Spanish outposts of Melilla and Ceuta from the rest of Morocco have been used by African migrants as a place to leave messages, Meneses said.

With access restricted to much of the north side, the art on the border fence between Tijuana and San Diego is unique to the south side. Many of the installations along the aging metal barrier that abuts Tijuana — referred to by U.S. authorities as the primary fence — have been temporary, and some of the displays that remain are weathered. Driving west along the fence from the border crossing at Otay Mesa past the city’s airport, one sees what appears to be an interminable stretch of white crosses with the names of the dead written in black. On occasion, a cross will have dried flowers tucked around it.

The crosses were attached to the fence in the late 1990s, said Claudia Smith of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a longtime migrant-rights activist who began collaborating with local artists to protest Operation Gatekeeper, a mid-1990s federal initiative to beef up border security.

At the time, additional fencing and other measures pushed human smuggling traffic toward East County mountains and the Imperial Valley desert, and border-crossing fatalities rose. The idea, Smith said, was to draw attention to the deaths.

“At the beginning, we were issuing news releases, but we realized there was no other way of conveying the magnitude of this tragedy,” said Smith, who continues to be involved in planning the installations with artists. “By doing something visual, and also something that was very prominently displayed, people would have to go by them as they went about their daily lives.”

Installations have included roughly 1,000 pairs of shoes with toe tags attached hung from the fence and a series of painted coffins, the latter the work of Tijuana artist Alberto Caro that has since been removed. A series of paintings by San Diego artist Michael Schnorr and members of the Border Art Workshop depicted a large fleshy wound with the words “La frontera es Una llaga abierta” — Spanish for the “the border is an open wound.” Some of the paintings still survive across from the airport.

Artist Susan Yamagata painted a skull motif on giant papier mâche boots and shoes that were displayed along the airport stretch, one shoe emblazoned with the words “¿Cuantos mas?” — Spanish for “How many more?”

“I wanted to be able to do something,” said Yamagata, who has worked on fence art projects with Smith. “I am not a wealthy person, but I can give time and labor. I felt it was a worthy cause.”

Just west of the airport, before the main road turns south and the pavement along the fence ends, a red obelisk with crosses stands in a small traffic circle, the city-sanctioned work of Tijuana artist Roberto Rosique. A closer look at the fence reveals words scratched in the metal, including a man’s name next to the word “Morelos,” a state in central-southern Mexico.

Along the fence, a close observer will find musings that Alonso said range from insults against U.S. border authorities to “quasi-poetic, saying, ‘I dream of the United States,’ or ‘My love awaits me in Los Angeles.’ You have to go walking the fence to find them.”

By the time the main road rejoins the fence toward Playas de Tijuana, the work of taggers can be seen on the fence. The protest art becomes visible again in Playas, where the fence extends into the ocean.

Over the years, there have been a series of installations on the south side of the fence, including a large painting of a skeleton drinking the last drop of water from a water jug and a traditional Mexican altar for the dead. Three paintings of “doors” — the only open one leading into a depiction of the desert — from a few years ago are still in place, the work of Yamagata and San Diego artist Todd Stands.

Most prominent is another cross-themed work, this one a massive cluster. Yamagata and Schnorr collaborated on it with Smith and with the Coalición Pro Defensa del Migrante, a Tijuana-based migrant aid organization. Hung from the fence near the beach are 5,100 white crosses, symbolizing the estimated number of border-crossing deaths in the past 15 years, strung together and draped from the top.

The display took six months to put together, said Esmeralda Siu, director of the migrant coalition. Volunteers, including the residents of a Tijuana migrant shelter, did much of the work of constructing and stringing the crosses together. They were installed Oct. 30, in time for Mexico’s traditional Day of the Dead holiday Nov. 2.

Swaying gently in the breeze, the crosses had a powerful effect on Silvia Urieta, 41, in Tijuana visiting relatives for the week.

“Imagine, how many people,” said Urieta, who lives in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo, on the coast of Guerrero state. “I took photos so that my paisanos could see it.”

The installation was a sobering sight for the family as they posed for photos, otherwise merrily, by the 1851 marble monument marking the border.

“Those who come from the south, they get the wrong idea,” said Urieta’s brother-in-law Adrian Pineda, 35, a native of Tijuana. “They think it’s easy. But here is how easy it is. For many, the dream they have ends in a cross.”

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/nov/30/an-openness-to-border-fence/