This past week, the Trump administration took two more steps toward its campaign promise to keep undocumented immigrants out of the US.
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There’s a bi-national beach on the US-Mexico border where separated families meet — here’s what it looks like
Founded in 1971, Friendship Park is a surveilled beach between San Diego and Tijuana. A community group is fighting for unrestricted access on both sides.
Mexicans stand on the beach while looking through the U.S.-Mexico border fence into the United States on May 1, 2016 in Tijuana, Mexico.
First Lady Pat Nixon inaugurated Friendship Park on August 18, 1971, when it was declared a national monument. Over 100 years prior, in 1848, the US built a pyramid-shaped statue on the San Diego beach to mark the end of the Mexican-American War.
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“May there never be a wall between these two great nations,” the first lady said. “Only friendship.”
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Today, there are 276 such monuments to the war along the border; the one in Friendship Park was the first.
Border security became more strict in the early 1990s. In 1994, as part of the Clinton administration’s Operation Gatekeeper, a fence was constructed on the border between San Diego and Tijuana — including in Friendship Park.
These security precautions made it more difficult for migrants to cross the border, and also increased the risk of heat stroke, dehydration, and hypothermia for those who tried. More than 6,000 migrants have died trying to cross the border since Operation Gatekeeper, according to a 2014 report by the International Organization for Migration.
In 2009, the US side of Friendship Park was shut down and a second fence running parallel to the first was completed. The part of the fence that stretches into the park (and the Pacific Ocean) includes barbed wire, surveillance cameras, and sensors that can detect an unauthorized crossing.
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After protests, however, Friendship Park re-opened in 2012.
Today, people with US citizenship or a visa can visit the San Diego side on Saturdays and Sundays. (The Tijuana side is open 24-7.) Many come to see relatives through the fence, John Fanestil says.
Community organizations host a variety of events there, including mass services, drum circles, and yoga classes.
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In 2007, a group of American and Mexican middle and high school students created a community garden where anyone on the Tijuana side can plant crops and flowers. Gardeners, architects, and community organizations volunteer to keep it running.
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"The garden started as a project ... to bring people with the common interest of promoting native flora together to make friends across the border fence while collaborating to improve the region," Friendship Garden's Facebook page reads.
In celebration of the Mexican holiday Children's Day in 2016, five families were allowed to re-unite and hug at Friendship Park. When the emergency door opened, they each had three minutes to embrace.
The families underwent two background checks before their reunion, according to The Washington Post.
Friends of Friendship Park is now pressuring the San Diego Border Control to let anyone access the San Diego park under border officials' watch.
In early 2017, the organization launched a petition to further that goal. It has since garnered over 1,100 signatures. Representatives of the group have even met with architects to design a new border park.
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But San Diego Border Patrol officials have cited concerns about safety, security, and the trafficking of contraband as reasons not to increase contact between residents of the two countries in the park.
The members of Friends of Friendship park disagree, however.
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Fanestil believes that Friendship Park will one day become truly bi-national. "This was its intended purpose," he said.
The coalition plans to unveil a proposal for a redesign of Friendship Park this fall.
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