by Char Miller
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has a nasty habit of rubbing salt into wounds, fresh and old.
Just ask anyone who lives along the Rio Grande Valley, makes their home in the Sonoran Desert covering large sections of northwest Mexico and southwest Arizona, or inhabits the dense sprawl of those entwined cities, San Diego and Tijuana. Since 2006, wherever DHS has pounded down its infamous Border Wall, it has chopped up habitats human and natural, severing longstanding cultural links and environmental connections between the U.S. and Mexico. It is a haunting reminder that the post-9/11 hunt for national security has generated its own insecurities.
The most recent (and stinging) example of this painful paradox came in late November. That's when DHS began construction of the latest segment of the wall, dubbed the Surf Fence Project. This 18-foot-high barrier, hung on six-inch rust-proof steel piping, is being pile-driven out 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The goal is fortify Imperial Beach, making it impregnable redoubt, the first line of defense for San Diego.
"There is a clear operational need for this development," Michael Hance, field operation supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol, told the BBC. "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."
As for the urgency to thrust this wall so deep into the pounding surf, local border patrol agents point to the capture in November of several undocumented migrants attempting to swim around the current fencing.
At a cost of $4.3 million, this new wall will be a very expensive form of deterrent. But Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Bruce Parks assured the LA Times that the exorbitant price tag (amounting to $143,333.33 per foot!) is worth every penny, for this stretch of beach "still has the potential to be very dangerous, as beautiful as it is."
I'd like to think that Parks is just being silly: do we really spend this much money building a wall because of the potential that this stretch of seaside can be a dangerous gateway into the U.S.? But he's not being flippant. After five years of listening to the Border Patrol and its parent department, DHS, say similar things every time they have announced the launch of yet another segment to the 670-mile border wall, it is clear that there is a pattern to their patter.
If, as DHS asserts, the land and sea are so threatening; if the people who would cross these stretches of our sovereign territory are judged to be so unsafe, then we must militarize the first while demonizing the second. Every mile of steel pole and three-ply fencing, every searchlight, movement sensor, high-flying drone, and armed guard is a reflection of this American war on nature and the Other. A terrorism that may be as malevolent as the threat this thick bulwark is supposed to repel.
This deliberate violence against land and people is underscored in the title of a new and insightful collection of essays on the geopolitics of the borderlands: Wounded Border/Frontera-Herida. The injuries that its ten chapters probe cover a wide range: the deeply flawed law enforcement and judicial systems on both sides of the border; the inequities and humiliations that migrants face in U.S. labor markets desperate for low-wage, expendable workers (pressure that women disproportionately bear); the environmental despoliation that comes from a globalized economy that created maquiladoras in Mexico, industries whose toxic effluent damages ground and surface waters, pollutes the air, and poisons adjacent neighborhoods. The border is a fraught landscape.
No shock, this contested physical space is also a social construct. As co-editor Justin Akers Chacón argues: "Since its inception as a boundary imposed by war of expansion, the U.S.-Mexico border has functioned in a dualistic manner. It has served both as a gateway to economic opportunity and as a barrier that creates and maintains unequal power relationships." Out of this duality, he writes, flows "the identities of both people in relationship to each other," becoming a "signifier of status that sustains each population in its own form of isolation." Although the proponents of globalization like to argue that this force is flattening the distinctions between counties and cultures, the U.S. border wall stands in stark refutation, a vertical and visible barrier. Bluntly divisive.
Emblematic of the rending of the social fabric that this enforced divide can produce is Friendship Park. Its name once conveyed its binational significance: First Lady Pat Nixon was on site at its ceremonial opening in 1971, there celebrating the site that memorialized the two nation's close relationship. "There should be no more fences," she declared.
That amity turned into animosity when, as a result of the 2006 Secure Fence Act that the George W. Bush administration promulgated, DHS built a series of fences that turned the park into a penitentiary. "New rules for public access to the gathering place leave families feeling like they have entered a maximum security prison on visiting day," writes Jill Holslin at her blog At the Edges. Any who would like to enter the park today must "wait outside the border wall 150 feet away from Friendship Park, seek permission to enter a locked gate, then be escorted by a border patrol agent in a 'security zone,' a five-foot tall pedestrian barrier that confines the space of the concrete circle of Friendship Park." Detention, surveillance, enforcement: these are the markers of a "containment society."
More egregious still is the latest effort to cordon off the United States, our arrogant ambition to split the Pacific Ocean in two.
Char Miller is the Director and W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona College, and editor of the just-published "Cities and Nature in the American West." This article originally appeared on KCET, and is reproduced with the author's permission.
Showing posts with label San Diego. Show all posts
Showing posts with label San Diego. Show all posts
Monday, January 2, 2012
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Border Walls are Ineffective Speed Bumps in the Desert
By Scott Nicol
All of the imagined benefits of the border wall flow from the assumption that if walls are built they will stop undocumented traffic from coming across. Politicians claim that building 700 miles of wall along our 1,933 mile long southern border, while ignoring the 3,987 mile long northern border and 12,479 miles of coastline will somehow allow the Department of Homeland Security to achieve the Secure Fence Act’s goal, to “achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”
Crossers climbing the “triple fence” near San Diego, California. Photo by Laura Garcia.
In fact, the Border Patrol’s own statistics show that the border walls have not brought about a decrease in illegal entries. The border patrol uses the number of border crossers apprehended in a given sector to gauge the overall number of attempted crossings. Apprehensions dropped dramatically between 2005, the year before the Secure Fence Act was passed, and 2007, the year after. But the decrease did not occur in areas where border walls had been built. On the contrary, the greatest reductions in apprehensions, which according to the Border Patrol would indicate a successful strategy for stopping undocumented immigration, were seen in sectors that did not have walls. Texas’ Rio Grande Valley sector saw a 45.3% decrease in apprehensions, bringing them to a 15 year low. The Del Rio, Texas, sector saw a 66.5% decrease. Neither sector had an inch of border wall before 2008. In sectors such as Tucson, which saw walls built shortly after passage of the Secure Fence Act, the reduction in apprehensions began before any wall posts were erected. The areas that saw an increase in crossings were California’s San Diego and El Centro sectors, both of which have had border walls for over a decade. At the same time that the unwalled border witnessed dramatic decreases in crossings, heavily fortified San Diego saw a 20.1% increase.
Even before the passage of the Secure Fence Act, it was clear that border walls did not reduce the number of people entering the United States. The Congressional Research Service found that the number of border crossers apprehended nationally in 1992 was the same as the number apprehended in 2004, after walls in San Diego had been erected. They concluded that migrant traffic had simply shifted to more remote areas in Arizona and that “increased enforcement in San Diego sector has had little impact on overall apprehensions.” Migrants were not stopped by border walls; they simply went around them.
Other researchers have studied the effectiveness of the border wall and border enforcement by analyzing how successful migrants are at getting through it. The Migrant Policy Institute found that 97% of undocumented immigrants eventually succeed in entering the United States, a number that has been unchanged since the first border walls went up in 1995. Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego told the House Judiciary Committee that according to his research,
Tightened border enforcement since 1993 has not stopped nor even discouraged unauthorized migrants from entering the United States. Even if apprehended, the vast majority (92-97%) keep trying until they succeed. Neither the higher probability of being apprehended by the Border Patrol, nor the sharply increased danger of clandestine entry through deserts and mountainous terrain, has discouraged potential migrants from leaving home.
Assertions by pundits and politicians that walls will allow the U.S. to “secure” its southern border are patently false. Spokespersons for the Border Patrol tend to describe it much more modestly. Del Rio, Texas, Border Patrol Chief Randy Hill said, “We're going to see steel barriers erected on the borders where U.S. and Mexican cities adjoin. These will slow down illegal crossers by minutes.” Not stop crossers, or allow the Border Patrol to “achieve and maintain operational control” of the border, but slow them down by “minutes.” As Border Patrol spokesperson Mike Scioli said, “The border fence is a speed bump in the desert.”
Even Bush administration Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said in 2007, “I think the fence has come to assume a certain kind of symbolic significance which should not obscure the fact that it is a much more complicated problem than putting up a fence which someone can climb over with a ladder or tunnel under with a shovel.”
Mile upon mile of border wall have been built, with no apparent thought given to efficacy, because the Secure Fence Act only mandated a mile count. There is no requirement that border walls have any measurable impact on immigration or smuggling, and in 2009 the Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Homeland Security had made no effort to determine whether or not walls were having any effect. Even the Border Patrol has questioned whether walls are being built in some locations for political, rather than operational, reasons. In a 2007 email obtained by the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Assistant Chief Patrol Agent for the Yuma sector asks, “will we be getting fence where we don’t need it in our sector for the sake of putting up the required mileage?” The miles of unnecessary border wall that he referred to have since been built through the Imperial Sand Dunes of Southern California.
Border Wall in the Imperial Sand Dunes. Border Patrol photo.
Despite its “symbolic significance” and its possibly arbitrary placement, the border wall comes with a real price tag. In 2007 the Congressional Research Service estimated that the border wall could cost as much as $49 billion to build and maintain. Since then the costs of construction have risen dramatically. The Army Corps of Engineers reported that the cost of building “pedestrian fences” has increased from an average of $3.5 million per mile to $7.5 million per mile. The cost of building vehicle barriers on the border is now $2.8 million per mile. Some sections of border wall are particularly expensive: the walls that have been inserted into the levees in south Texas averaged $12 million per mile; in California, a 3.5 mile section that involved filling in canyons cost taxpayers $57 million. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security asked Congress to allocate an additional $400 million for border wall construction, because the $2.7 billion already spent was not enough to finish out the year.
Why would members of Congress vote to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on border walls that do not work?
Simply put, for members of Congress who do not live beside the border, and do not count on the votes of those who do, the border wall is an abstraction. The reality that the border wall has little or no impact on border crossings is irrelevant. The reality that more than 400 property owners have had their property condemned is irrelevant. The reality that federally designated wilderness areas and wildlife refuges have been severely impacted is irrelevant. The politicians who voted for border walls were voting for a symbol, something that could be used to give voters a false sense of security during election cycles, and nothing more.
All of the imagined benefits of the border wall flow from the assumption that if walls are built they will stop undocumented traffic from coming across. Politicians claim that building 700 miles of wall along our 1,933 mile long southern border, while ignoring the 3,987 mile long northern border and 12,479 miles of coastline will somehow allow the Department of Homeland Security to achieve the Secure Fence Act’s goal, to “achieve and maintain operational control over the entire international land and maritime borders of the United States.”
Crossers climbing the “triple fence” near San Diego, California. Photo by Laura Garcia.
In fact, the Border Patrol’s own statistics show that the border walls have not brought about a decrease in illegal entries. The border patrol uses the number of border crossers apprehended in a given sector to gauge the overall number of attempted crossings. Apprehensions dropped dramatically between 2005, the year before the Secure Fence Act was passed, and 2007, the year after. But the decrease did not occur in areas where border walls had been built. On the contrary, the greatest reductions in apprehensions, which according to the Border Patrol would indicate a successful strategy for stopping undocumented immigration, were seen in sectors that did not have walls. Texas’ Rio Grande Valley sector saw a 45.3% decrease in apprehensions, bringing them to a 15 year low. The Del Rio, Texas, sector saw a 66.5% decrease. Neither sector had an inch of border wall before 2008. In sectors such as Tucson, which saw walls built shortly after passage of the Secure Fence Act, the reduction in apprehensions began before any wall posts were erected. The areas that saw an increase in crossings were California’s San Diego and El Centro sectors, both of which have had border walls for over a decade. At the same time that the unwalled border witnessed dramatic decreases in crossings, heavily fortified San Diego saw a 20.1% increase.
Even before the passage of the Secure Fence Act, it was clear that border walls did not reduce the number of people entering the United States. The Congressional Research Service found that the number of border crossers apprehended nationally in 1992 was the same as the number apprehended in 2004, after walls in San Diego had been erected. They concluded that migrant traffic had simply shifted to more remote areas in Arizona and that “increased enforcement in San Diego sector has had little impact on overall apprehensions.” Migrants were not stopped by border walls; they simply went around them.
Other researchers have studied the effectiveness of the border wall and border enforcement by analyzing how successful migrants are at getting through it. The Migrant Policy Institute found that 97% of undocumented immigrants eventually succeed in entering the United States, a number that has been unchanged since the first border walls went up in 1995. Wayne Cornelius, Director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California-San Diego told the House Judiciary Committee that according to his research,
Tightened border enforcement since 1993 has not stopped nor even discouraged unauthorized migrants from entering the United States. Even if apprehended, the vast majority (92-97%) keep trying until they succeed. Neither the higher probability of being apprehended by the Border Patrol, nor the sharply increased danger of clandestine entry through deserts and mountainous terrain, has discouraged potential migrants from leaving home.
Assertions by pundits and politicians that walls will allow the U.S. to “secure” its southern border are patently false. Spokespersons for the Border Patrol tend to describe it much more modestly. Del Rio, Texas, Border Patrol Chief Randy Hill said, “We're going to see steel barriers erected on the borders where U.S. and Mexican cities adjoin. These will slow down illegal crossers by minutes.” Not stop crossers, or allow the Border Patrol to “achieve and maintain operational control” of the border, but slow them down by “minutes.” As Border Patrol spokesperson Mike Scioli said, “The border fence is a speed bump in the desert.”
Even Bush administration Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff said in 2007, “I think the fence has come to assume a certain kind of symbolic significance which should not obscure the fact that it is a much more complicated problem than putting up a fence which someone can climb over with a ladder or tunnel under with a shovel.”
Mile upon mile of border wall have been built, with no apparent thought given to efficacy, because the Secure Fence Act only mandated a mile count. There is no requirement that border walls have any measurable impact on immigration or smuggling, and in 2009 the Government Accountability Office found that the Department of Homeland Security had made no effort to determine whether or not walls were having any effect. Even the Border Patrol has questioned whether walls are being built in some locations for political, rather than operational, reasons. In a 2007 email obtained by the Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) through a Freedom of Information Act request, the Assistant Chief Patrol Agent for the Yuma sector asks, “will we be getting fence where we don’t need it in our sector for the sake of putting up the required mileage?” The miles of unnecessary border wall that he referred to have since been built through the Imperial Sand Dunes of Southern California.
Border Wall in the Imperial Sand Dunes. Border Patrol photo.
Despite its “symbolic significance” and its possibly arbitrary placement, the border wall comes with a real price tag. In 2007 the Congressional Research Service estimated that the border wall could cost as much as $49 billion to build and maintain. Since then the costs of construction have risen dramatically. The Army Corps of Engineers reported that the cost of building “pedestrian fences” has increased from an average of $3.5 million per mile to $7.5 million per mile. The cost of building vehicle barriers on the border is now $2.8 million per mile. Some sections of border wall are particularly expensive: the walls that have been inserted into the levees in south Texas averaged $12 million per mile; in California, a 3.5 mile section that involved filling in canyons cost taxpayers $57 million. In 2008, the Department of Homeland Security asked Congress to allocate an additional $400 million for border wall construction, because the $2.7 billion already spent was not enough to finish out the year.
Why would members of Congress vote to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on border walls that do not work?
Simply put, for members of Congress who do not live beside the border, and do not count on the votes of those who do, the border wall is an abstraction. The reality that the border wall has little or no impact on border crossings is irrelevant. The reality that more than 400 property owners have had their property condemned is irrelevant. The reality that federally designated wilderness areas and wildlife refuges have been severely impacted is irrelevant. The politicians who voted for border walls were voting for a symbol, something that could be used to give voters a false sense of security during election cycles, and nothing more.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The Border Patrol Halts Communion at Friendship Park as Border Wall Construction Looms
By John Fanestil
On Saturday I was almost arrested for committing assault with a tortilla. Or was it my communion cup that Customs and Border Protection agents perceived to be a threat?
The setting was Friendship Park, a historic venue on the U.S.-Mexico border, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For generations people from the two nations have met at this location to visit with friends and family through the border fence.
As part of its commitment to build 670 miles of double and triple barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Department of Homeland Security is building a second wall across Friendship Park. On December 23, 2008, Customs and Border Protection declared the site a construction zone. On January 6, 2009 CBP released final design plans for the park and announced that these plans would eliminate permanently all public access to this unique site.
We, who are aficionados of the park, were stunned by the announcement. We knew DHS had decided to build a wall across the park, and we knew Customs and Border Protection agents had concerns about drug-smuggling and illegal border-crossings at the location. Still, we had assumed that the totality of law enforcement strategy for Friendship Park would not be predicated on the illegal conduct of a few. After all, drugs and criminal activity are problems in thousands of parks across the United States, and law enforcement agencies don’t respond by simply shutting them down.
We had assumed that some accommodation would be made for the vast majority of visitors to the park, who respect and honor the park’s intended purpose. Locals don’t call it “Friendship Park” for nothing, after all. Surely, we thought, there must be some room for friendship in the complex formula of U.S. border policy.
As the news of our government’s plans to close the park sunk in, we began to wonder when CBP would begin to enforce the ban on public access. The answer, it turns out, was this past Saturday, February 21. And I guess I have the ignominious distinction of being the first U.S. citizen to be forcibly prevented from approaching the border fence at Friendship Park.
For the past eight months I have gone to Friendship Park each Sunday afternoon and served communion to people on both sides of the border fence. I have done so out of solidarity with the many people who meet their loved ones there – and as a protest against DHS plans to decimate the park. People have been breaking bread at this location for a long, long time. It seemed to me only fitting that Friendship Park should host the sacrament of communion, too.
This past week, we moved our communion celebration to Saturday. The reason for this was something that any pastor can understand: we wanted to make the choir happy. A fabulous choir, composed of singers from both countries, wanted to perform at Friendship Park. Most of the singers have standing obligations on Sunday, so they asked for the event to be held on Saturday. We were quick to oblige.
As we approached the border on Saturday, we were met by a wall of CBP officers, who told us we could go no further than about 45 feet from the border fence. The choir set up shop and sang the Faure Requiem, the music blasting from a sound system set up by our friends in Tijuana. The choir performed admirably, despite having to compete with whistles, shouts and bullhorn blasts from a small group of anti-immigrant protestors who tried to hi-jack the gathering. Their inimitable combination of ignorance, hatred and incivility was no match for the choir, which included a stunning soprano solo – the Pie Jesu, “at the feet of Jesus” – sung from a distance in Tijuana.
After the requiem and a few prayers, I shared a brief message with the congregation. I recalled the gospel story in which Jesus goes to a mountaintop with his closest disciples. After Jesus is transfigured in dazzling light, Peter proposes that they erect tents atop the mountain and simply stay put. I drew the analogy to the love that so many of us feel for the United States, the land our forebears called “a shining city on a hill.” But can a city on a hill still truly shine if it has walls built around it? This is the great temptation of patriotism – the love of country is so quickly turned into hostility toward “the other.” The desire to protect our own wealth and privilege from the intrusion of foreigners is akin to Peter’s desire to stay up on the mountaintop with Jesus. As the Bible story makes clear, God has other things in mind for Jesus and those who find in him a kindred spirit. Jesus came down off the mountaintop and set out on his journey to Jerusalem, resisting at every step along the way all human efforts to build walls between God and God’s people.
Having concluded my brief sermon, I then offered communion to the 150 or so who had gathered in the United States. I then turned to the south, intending to serve the many people who were assembled in Tijuana for this same purpose.
My way was blocked by a Border Patrol agent, who was determined to make an impression. “You don’t want to do this,” he shouted at me, unsnapping several compartments on his uniform – to handcuffs, I presume, or perhaps mace.
I told him that all I wanted to do was serve communion, and another agent nearby shouted, “Go to Tijuana if you want to serve communion. You’re supposed to be a man of God. Then obey the law!”
I decided that this was not the time to conduct a teach-in on the historic Christian practice of civil disobedience, and instead tried to step forward. “I just want to serve communion,” I said.
The lead agent stepped in front of me, holding out his hand. “If you bump into me,” he shouted, “you’ll be charged with assaulting an officer.”
I’ve since learned from a lawyer that my actions did not come anywhere near the threshold for constituting assault, but in the moment I didn’t know that this was the case.
“So if I try to walk past you, and I bump into you, I’ll be charged with assault?” I asked.
“That’s right,” he said.
“OK,” I replied, “then I guess you’ll have to arrest me, because I’m going to serve communion.”
“OK, I will,” he said. “Turn around and put your hands behind your back.”
I did as I was told – this may have been a tactical mistake on my part – and the lead agent then instructed a colleague to remove me from the premises. “Take him out of the park,” he said, “but don’t arrest him.”
In retrospect I should have asked if I was being detained, but it seemed an almost silly question. After all I was being dragged away by a man in uniform, wearing a gun.
As we climbed the hillside that overlooks the beach at Friendship Park, the agent and I began to exchange pleasantries. “If it weren’t for all this mess, it really would be a beautiful day, wouldn’t it?” I said.
“Yeah,” he replied. “What did you have to go and do all that for?”
“I didn’t mean any disrespect to you or your colleagues,” I explained. “Our problem isn’t with you guys, we know you are just following orders. Our problem is with the policy, with the decision by your higher-ups to shut down the park.”
“The ones who ruin it,” the agent replied, “are the bad guys who pass all kinds of crap through the fence.”
“I understand that,” I said, “but this is exactly the problem with all our border policies. We’ve got to figure out a better way to distinguish between the bad guys and the good guys.”
The agent shrugged.
We sat atop the mesa, the agent and I, looking down on the beach. Later I learned that another of my friends, Dan Watman, was also removed from the beach by Border Patrol. After that the CBP agents put up a solid wall in front of our group and threatened them with assault charges if they stepped forward. The leaders of our group decided to stand down.
I am pleased with the way we all held up under such difficult circumstances on Saturday – but two days later I am left with a bad taste in my mouth. I find it unpalatable that I was not permitted to serve communion. There is a young homeless man, Adrian, who lives on the beach right there in Tijuana. He is there every Sunday and I saw him this last Saturday, too. Was he less worthy of communion that day than I was? What about Oscar, who was deported eight months ago and is separated from his wife and children, still living in the United States? He was there, too, just looking for a little human contact. Had I been allowed to offer him a piece of tortilla and a swig of juice, would that have compromised our national security, or our nation’s nobler principles?
Questions like these point to a larger one: What is to become of our nation’s southern border? Is this strip of land – over 1,850 miles long – to be turned over to the Department of Homeland Security and converted into nothing more than a “zone of enforcement,” straddled by walls?
I cannot abide it. I cannot abide it because I know the border can be an altogether different place than this. Like millions of others whose lives and relationships straddle the international boundary, I know the border can be a place where human beings meet, a place of friendship, a place of communion.
And that’s why I’ll be going back to Friendship Park next Sunday afternoon, to try once more to serve communion.
You are welcome to join me. The particulars are below my signature.
Adelante.
John Fanestil
DATE: Sunday, March 1, 2009
TIME: 2:30 meetup at entrance to Border Field State Park
PROGRAM: 30 minute hike to Friendship Park, communion
DIRECTIONS: Take Hwy 5 South, exit Dairy Mart Road, turn right (west) and follow the winding road to the entrance to the park.
INSTRUCTIONS: Bring documents verifying U.S. residence. Wear hiking boots.
In case you missed it, you can see the coverage in the Union-Tribune at this link. You can also keep up to date by joining the Friends of Friendship Park on Facebook. For Scott Bennett’s photos from the San Diego side, click here. For Alondra Almendra’s photos taken in Tijuana, click here.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
MINISTER DETAINED WHILE ATTEMPTING TO SERVE COMMUNION AT U.S.-MEXICO BORDER WALL
The following release was issued by the San Diego-based Foundation for Change. Every Sunday since last summer, John Fanestil, the Foundation's Executive Director, has been offering communion to people on both sides of the wall at Friendship Park. To learn more about the Foundation for Change, visit their website here.
SAN DIEGO, CA – On Saturday, February 21, United States Border Patrol (USBP) agents forcibly denied U.S. citizens access to Friendship Park, an historic plaza overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced their intent to impose a permanent ban on all public access to the historic location.
At noon on Saturday a group of 150 park patrons – local church choir members, university students, human rights advocates and environmentalists – gathered at Friendship Park to hold a peaceful, ecumenical service and concert. They were joined by friends from Tijuana, including members of the Tijuana Opera, who were waiting to participate on the other side of the fence. Upon their arrival, Border Patrol agents with rubber-bullet guns and tear-gas canisters at the ready forcibly pushed the group back and threatened to arrest any who would approach the fence.
The group then performed the Faure Requiem Mass in harmony with the Mexican singers and musicians. Rev. John Fanestil – a United Methodist Pastor and Executive Director of the San Diego-based Foundation for Change – then celebrated communion with a crowd of over 150 on the U.S. side of the border. When he attempted to distribute the communion elements to the crowd in Tijuana, Fanestil’s movements were blocked by a Border Patrol agent and he was told that one more step forward would result in his being charged with assault. Fanestil, communion elements in hand, was then told to turn around and place his hands behind his back. He was then forcibly removed from the area and later released without charge.
Also detained at Saturday’s event was Daniel Watman, organizer of the community-based organization Border Meetup. For years Watman’s group has hosted social events at Friendship Park, ranging from yoga classes and salsa dancing lessons to beach clean-ups in coalition with environmental organizations from San Diego and Tijuana like San Diego Coastkeeper and Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación del Medio Ambiente. As part of Saturday’s program, Watman and other participants had intended to join with counterparts from Grupo Ecologista de Tijuana in restoring Friendship Park’s bi-national garden, which has been uprooted on the U.S.
side by Border Patrol.
"Saturday, we followed in the footsteps of thousands over the decades who have visited Friendship Park for its intended purpose, international friendship," said the Rev. Fanestil. "Now, U.S. citizens are being walled off from a part of their own country and the building of friendships with our Mexican neighbors is being criminalized."
Dedicated on August 18, 1971, by First Lady Pat Nixon, Friendship Park is an historic, binational plaza that encircles a marble monument marking the initial boundary point separating the U.S. and Mexico since 1848. The plaza is within California’s Border Field State Park and a part of a larger ecological habitat, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. After planting a tree to inaugurate the plaza in 1971, Mrs. Nixon ordered her security guards to cut the barbed wire separating her from a cheering crowd in Mexico and stated, "I hate to see a fence anywhere."
On December 23, 2008, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) declared Friendship Park a construction zone and announced a ban on all public access. On January 6, 2009 CBP released final design plans for the park and revealed their plans to prohibit permanently all public access to this unique site.
DHS plans for Friendship Park are part of a larger project which saw the Bush Administration waive dozens of environmental laws and regulations in order to facilitate the accelerated construction of double and triple barriers along the length of the 1850-mile U.S.-Mexico border. To date, over 600 miles of supplemental border wall have been completed, in some locations as far as two miles north of the first fence marking the international boundary. DHS officials have made known their desire to claim the lands along the border as a “zone of enforcement,” in effect creating a “no man’s land” that cuts across private property, public lands, national parks, sensitive wildlife refuges, sacred lands and historic cultural sites.
The San Diego-based coalition, “Friends of Friendship Park, includes over 30 community organizations dedicated to preserving the park. Local efforts have been supported by legislators ranging from Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi to San Diego City Council members. On February 4, members of Congress Susan Davis and Bob Filner, along with State Senators Christine Kehoe and Denise Ducheny, and State Assemblymembers Mary Salas and Lori Saldaña, sent a joint letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking her to halt to construction at the site pending further review.
The effort to save Friendship Park is a part of a larger movement being led by citizens and legislators from Brownsville, Texas, through New Mexico and Arizona to San Diego, California advocating a moratorium on border wall construction, pending further review. On February 10, eight members of Congress from border districts sent a letter to President Obama requesting a halt to construction on the border.
"In an era of advanced technologies, the border fence is an antiquated structure that has torn our communities apart and damaged our cross-border relationships,” the legislators wrote.
SAN DIEGO, CA – On Saturday, February 21, United States Border Patrol (USBP) agents forcibly denied U.S. citizens access to Friendship Park, an historic plaza overlooking the Pacific Ocean on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has announced their intent to impose a permanent ban on all public access to the historic location.
At noon on Saturday a group of 150 park patrons – local church choir members, university students, human rights advocates and environmentalists – gathered at Friendship Park to hold a peaceful, ecumenical service and concert. They were joined by friends from Tijuana, including members of the Tijuana Opera, who were waiting to participate on the other side of the fence. Upon their arrival, Border Patrol agents with rubber-bullet guns and tear-gas canisters at the ready forcibly pushed the group back and threatened to arrest any who would approach the fence.
The group then performed the Faure Requiem Mass in harmony with the Mexican singers and musicians. Rev. John Fanestil – a United Methodist Pastor and Executive Director of the San Diego-based Foundation for Change – then celebrated communion with a crowd of over 150 on the U.S. side of the border. When he attempted to distribute the communion elements to the crowd in Tijuana, Fanestil’s movements were blocked by a Border Patrol agent and he was told that one more step forward would result in his being charged with assault. Fanestil, communion elements in hand, was then told to turn around and place his hands behind his back. He was then forcibly removed from the area and later released without charge.
Also detained at Saturday’s event was Daniel Watman, organizer of the community-based organization Border Meetup. For years Watman’s group has hosted social events at Friendship Park, ranging from yoga classes and salsa dancing lessons to beach clean-ups in coalition with environmental organizations from San Diego and Tijuana like San Diego Coastkeeper and Proyecto Fronterizo de Educación del Medio Ambiente. As part of Saturday’s program, Watman and other participants had intended to join with counterparts from Grupo Ecologista de Tijuana in restoring Friendship Park’s bi-national garden, which has been uprooted on the U.S.
side by Border Patrol.
"Saturday, we followed in the footsteps of thousands over the decades who have visited Friendship Park for its intended purpose, international friendship," said the Rev. Fanestil. "Now, U.S. citizens are being walled off from a part of their own country and the building of friendships with our Mexican neighbors is being criminalized."
Dedicated on August 18, 1971, by First Lady Pat Nixon, Friendship Park is an historic, binational plaza that encircles a marble monument marking the initial boundary point separating the U.S. and Mexico since 1848. The plaza is within California’s Border Field State Park and a part of a larger ecological habitat, the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. After planting a tree to inaugurate the plaza in 1971, Mrs. Nixon ordered her security guards to cut the barbed wire separating her from a cheering crowd in Mexico and stated, "I hate to see a fence anywhere."
On December 23, 2008, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) declared Friendship Park a construction zone and announced a ban on all public access. On January 6, 2009 CBP released final design plans for the park and revealed their plans to prohibit permanently all public access to this unique site.
DHS plans for Friendship Park are part of a larger project which saw the Bush Administration waive dozens of environmental laws and regulations in order to facilitate the accelerated construction of double and triple barriers along the length of the 1850-mile U.S.-Mexico border. To date, over 600 miles of supplemental border wall have been completed, in some locations as far as two miles north of the first fence marking the international boundary. DHS officials have made known their desire to claim the lands along the border as a “zone of enforcement,” in effect creating a “no man’s land” that cuts across private property, public lands, national parks, sensitive wildlife refuges, sacred lands and historic cultural sites.
The San Diego-based coalition, “Friends of Friendship Park, includes over 30 community organizations dedicated to preserving the park. Local efforts have been supported by legislators ranging from Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi to San Diego City Council members. On February 4, members of Congress Susan Davis and Bob Filner, along with State Senators Christine Kehoe and Denise Ducheny, and State Assemblymembers Mary Salas and Lori Saldaña, sent a joint letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano asking her to halt to construction at the site pending further review.
The effort to save Friendship Park is a part of a larger movement being led by citizens and legislators from Brownsville, Texas, through New Mexico and Arizona to San Diego, California advocating a moratorium on border wall construction, pending further review. On February 10, eight members of Congress from border districts sent a letter to President Obama requesting a halt to construction on the border.
"In an era of advanced technologies, the border fence is an antiquated structure that has torn our communities apart and damaged our cross-border relationships,” the legislators wrote.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Friendship Park: A Place of Communion or a Zone of Enforcement?
By John Fanestil
As we approached, a Border Patrol officer checked in with us. It was clear that he had been briefed about our presence and was courteous and professional. He asked that we gather at the fence on the beach, but not congregate with the crowds down at the water’s edge as that would make it difficult for them to monitor border crossings. We sent some of our group ahead to talk with the folks on the beach, not wanting our celebration of communion to be confused for an event that invited crossings.
We also told the agent that we intended to serve communion on Monument Mesa, and this clearly surprised him. The mesa was closed, he told us, because it was a construction zone and was unsafe. We told him we were aware of this and that we intended to go to the top of the mesa anyway, as our people had been gathering there for years, in fact for generations. He told us that he would have to check in with his supervisor about this and we agreed that this would be good for him to do. We kept walking.
After waiting a while for the supervisor to weigh in, we decided to begin our celebrations on the beach. Many hundreds of people gathered on the Tijuana side of the fence. I shared with the crowd my belief that what is happening at Friendship Park is of historic proportions. Just as in 1849 the members of the first US-Mexico boundary commission gathered at this site to create the border out of nothing, we are once again at this location trying to decide exactly what the border will be.
At present the US Government is trying to impose a vision of the border that is characterized by fear and hostility and mistrust. They envision a “zone of enforcement” that will run the entire length of the border, and to which no one will be allowed access, from either the south or the north. This is why they have chosen to declare that all public access at Friendship Park will soon be eliminated – because they are trying to set a precedent that they hope someday to enforce along the entire length of the border.
We, by contrast, had gathered to celebrate a different vision of the future. We had gathered to celebrate the border we have come to know and love – a place of profound human encounter, a place of friendship, a place of communion.
After consecrating the elements and serving the crowd on both sides of the wall, a small number of us prepared to climb the slope of Monument Mesa. We had been warned that we would be cited for trespassing by officers from CA Fish & Wildlife, but we had prepared for there to be some consequence and we were committed to make it to the monument. We climbed up on to the mesa, stepped over the plastic meshing that now surrounds the plaza, and began to prepare to share communion. Another Border Patrol agent approached us, told us the Mesa was closed, again citing reasons of safety in a construction zone as the reason for its closure. We told him we understood that, but that we were going to stay and serve communion. He returned to his vehicle, and we shared communion with a small group of people who greeted us on the Mexican side of the monument.
We arrived Sunday as planned at 2:30 pm at the entrance to Border Field State Park . We hiked out the horse trail as we did last week and headed south on the beach. It was a stunningly beautiful day – the hike is about a mile and a half.
No two days are alike at Friendship Park , and two things stood out. First, there were a lot of people at the park – far more than usual for a winter weekend. Clearly, the word was out about this past Tuesday’s meeting – the one at which Customs and Border Patrol announced that the designs for Friendship Park had been finalized and that these designs would allow no public access of any kind to either Monument Mesa or to the border wall on the beach.
Second, the tide was extraordinarily low, and from a distance we could see that hundreds of people had gathered on the beach at Playas de Tijuana. Of these at least a hundred were standing down by the water’s edge, beyond the reach of the border wall (see photo).
No two days are alike at Friendship Park , and two things stood out. First, there were a lot of people at the park – far more than usual for a winter weekend. Clearly, the word was out about this past Tuesday’s meeting – the one at which Customs and Border Patrol announced that the designs for Friendship Park had been finalized and that these designs would allow no public access of any kind to either Monument Mesa or to the border wall on the beach.
Second, the tide was extraordinarily low, and from a distance we could see that hundreds of people had gathered on the beach at Playas de Tijuana. Of these at least a hundred were standing down by the water’s edge, beyond the reach of the border wall (see photo).
As we approached, a Border Patrol officer checked in with us. It was clear that he had been briefed about our presence and was courteous and professional. He asked that we gather at the fence on the beach, but not congregate with the crowds down at the water’s edge as that would make it difficult for them to monitor border crossings. We sent some of our group ahead to talk with the folks on the beach, not wanting our celebration of communion to be confused for an event that invited crossings.
We also told the agent that we intended to serve communion on Monument Mesa, and this clearly surprised him. The mesa was closed, he told us, because it was a construction zone and was unsafe. We told him we were aware of this and that we intended to go to the top of the mesa anyway, as our people had been gathering there for years, in fact for generations. He told us that he would have to check in with his supervisor about this and we agreed that this would be good for him to do. We kept walking.
After waiting a while for the supervisor to weigh in, we decided to begin our celebrations on the beach. Many hundreds of people gathered on the Tijuana side of the fence. I shared with the crowd my belief that what is happening at Friendship Park is of historic proportions. Just as in 1849 the members of the first US-Mexico boundary commission gathered at this site to create the border out of nothing, we are once again at this location trying to decide exactly what the border will be.
At present the US Government is trying to impose a vision of the border that is characterized by fear and hostility and mistrust. They envision a “zone of enforcement” that will run the entire length of the border, and to which no one will be allowed access, from either the south or the north. This is why they have chosen to declare that all public access at Friendship Park will soon be eliminated – because they are trying to set a precedent that they hope someday to enforce along the entire length of the border.
We, by contrast, had gathered to celebrate a different vision of the future. We had gathered to celebrate the border we have come to know and love – a place of profound human encounter, a place of friendship, a place of communion.
After consecrating the elements and serving the crowd on both sides of the wall, a small number of us prepared to climb the slope of Monument Mesa. We had been warned that we would be cited for trespassing by officers from CA Fish & Wildlife, but we had prepared for there to be some consequence and we were committed to make it to the monument. We climbed up on to the mesa, stepped over the plastic meshing that now surrounds the plaza, and began to prepare to share communion. Another Border Patrol agent approached us, told us the Mesa was closed, again citing reasons of safety in a construction zone as the reason for its closure. We told him we understood that, but that we were going to stay and serve communion. He returned to his vehicle, and we shared communion with a small group of people who greeted us on the Mexican side of the monument.
When we returned to the beach below, one of our friends told us he heard a Border Patrol agent call in on his radio, “There are about eight of them (who went up on to Monument Mesa) and I’m not going to detain anybody with all these cameras around.”
We look forward to celebrating communion at Friendship Park next Sunday, January 18. We will meet at the entrance to the park at 2:30 p.m.
Adelante.
We look forward to celebrating communion at Friendship Park next Sunday, January 18. We will meet at the entrance to the park at 2:30 p.m.
Adelante.
John Fanestil is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Change.
Friday, January 9, 2009
A Border Wall in the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area Will Be an Environmental Disaster
Four prominent national environmental organizations - the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Wilderness Society, and Wildlands Network - issued the following press release in response to recently announced plans to punch the border wall and its associated roads through the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area. The Secure Fence Act itself states that if the elevation grade of an area exceeds 10%, walls do not need to be constructed there. Otay Mountain is so steep and rugged that the goal of blasting is to achieve an elevation grade of 15%, greater than the 10% limit in the Secure Fence Act. When the Environmental Protection Agency reviewed the plan to build this section of border wall, they expressed concern that plans to fill in canyons and waterways that feed into the Tijuana River would violate the Clean Water Act. The Department of the Interior expressed concern for 6 endangered species that would be impacted by the wall. Secretary Chertoff's response was to waive the Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Environmental Policy Act, the Otay Mountain Wildeerness Act, and 32 other federal laws, and now their contractor, Sukut, is quite literally breaking ground.
Contacts: Kim Vacariu, Wildlands Network 575-557-0155
Matt Clark, Defenders of Wildlife 520-623-9653
Oliver Bernstein, Sierra Club 512-477-2152
Paul Spitler, The Wilderness Society 202-429-2672
Conservation Groups call for Halt to
Road-Building in Borderlands Wilderness Area
Project is first use of Real ID Act waiver allowing
construction in designated wilderness
Otay Mesa, CA –With little advance notice, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun bulldozing a road inside a federally-designated wilderness area on the U.S.-Mexico border. Apparently not wishing to attract national attention to the controversial project, DHS made the construction start-up announcement through its contractor on Christmas Eve. According to DHS, the road-building project is necessary to build a border wall within and immediately to the south of the 18,500-acre Otay Mountain Wilderness Area on the U.S.-Mexico border east of San Diego.
The rugged terrain of the wilderness area will require blasting and removal of 530,000 cubic yards of rock, and extensive grading and leveling in order to build the wall and the accompanying road, says Sukut Construction, the contractor doing the work. Plans for the project note that much of the five-mile patrol road and approximately 1,300 feet of the primary pedestrian fence would extend into the Otay Mountain Wilderness.
Because motorized equipment, new roads and permanent human structures are not permitted within a federally-designated wilderness area, the Wilderness Act was among the 36 laws waived by Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff in April 2008 in order to expedite border wall construction. The controversial waiver was authorized under the Real ID Act, which allows the Secretary to exempt DHS from any and all laws that might interfere with construction of the border wall and associated access roads.
“Wilderness areas are designated by Congress specifically to protect sensitive places from projects like this road construction,” said Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “This road sets terrible precedent and clearly demonstrates the dangers of granting the Secretary of Homeland Security authority to waive any law in order to build walls along our international borders.”
The project now moves forward despite DHS documentation that “Construction of the fence, staging areas, and patrol road…will result in a barrier to movement for large non-flying animals and general loss of wildlife habitat.” According to Matt Clark, Southwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife, “Such harmful impacts to wilderness characteristics and values are clearly inconsistent with the Congressional intent of the law that established the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area in 1999. The waiver and the wall are an affront to our nation’s laws and natural heritage.”
When Congress passed the Secure Fence Act (SFA) in 2006, mandating that 670 miles of border fence be constructed by the end of 2008, San Diego Sector Border Patrol spokesman, Richard Kite, said, "…at the (Otay) mountain range, you simply don't need a fence. It's such harsh terrain it's difficult to walk, let alone drive. There's no reason to disrupt the land when the land itself is a physical barrier." Kite’s experience and reasoning, along with the language of the SFA itself, which does not require walls on slopes with more than a 10% grade (such as most of those in the project area), has apparently been ignored by DHS as it now attempts to speed up border wall construction.
“The frantic pace of wall building along the U.S.-Mexico border completely ignores the project’s serious environmental consequences to wildlife, wildlands and the general ecology of the borderlands region,” says Kim Vacariu, Western Director for the Wildlands Network, a conservation group working to protect cross-border wildlife corridors. “The waiving of the bedrock environmental laws that protect our nation’s natural resources is unconscionable. Construction in the Otay Mountain Wilderness should cease pending immediate and thorough environmental review,” he notes.
William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, agreed. “We are very concerned about the impacts this wall will cause to wilderness values at Otay,” Meadows said. “Wilderness areas are among the last places in the United States that are untrammeled by humans, and we believe they should stay that way.”
Road-Building in Borderlands Wilderness Area
Project is first use of Real ID Act waiver allowing
construction in designated wilderness
Otay Mesa, CA –With little advance notice, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun bulldozing a road inside a federally-designated wilderness area on the U.S.-Mexico border. Apparently not wishing to attract national attention to the controversial project, DHS made the construction start-up announcement through its contractor on Christmas Eve. According to DHS, the road-building project is necessary to build a border wall within and immediately to the south of the 18,500-acre Otay Mountain Wilderness Area on the U.S.-Mexico border east of San Diego.
The rugged terrain of the wilderness area will require blasting and removal of 530,000 cubic yards of rock, and extensive grading and leveling in order to build the wall and the accompanying road, says Sukut Construction, the contractor doing the work. Plans for the project note that much of the five-mile patrol road and approximately 1,300 feet of the primary pedestrian fence would extend into the Otay Mountain Wilderness.
Because motorized equipment, new roads and permanent human structures are not permitted within a federally-designated wilderness area, the Wilderness Act was among the 36 laws waived by Homeland Security Secretary Chertoff in April 2008 in order to expedite border wall construction. The controversial waiver was authorized under the Real ID Act, which allows the Secretary to exempt DHS from any and all laws that might interfere with construction of the border wall and associated access roads.
“Wilderness areas are designated by Congress specifically to protect sensitive places from projects like this road construction,” said Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club. “This road sets terrible precedent and clearly demonstrates the dangers of granting the Secretary of Homeland Security authority to waive any law in order to build walls along our international borders.”
The project now moves forward despite DHS documentation that “Construction of the fence, staging areas, and patrol road…will result in a barrier to movement for large non-flying animals and general loss of wildlife habitat.” According to Matt Clark, Southwest representative for Defenders of Wildlife, “Such harmful impacts to wilderness characteristics and values are clearly inconsistent with the Congressional intent of the law that established the Otay Mountain Wilderness Area in 1999. The waiver and the wall are an affront to our nation’s laws and natural heritage.”
When Congress passed the Secure Fence Act (SFA) in 2006, mandating that 670 miles of border fence be constructed by the end of 2008, San Diego Sector Border Patrol spokesman, Richard Kite, said, "…at the (Otay) mountain range, you simply don't need a fence. It's such harsh terrain it's difficult to walk, let alone drive. There's no reason to disrupt the land when the land itself is a physical barrier." Kite’s experience and reasoning, along with the language of the SFA itself, which does not require walls on slopes with more than a 10% grade (such as most of those in the project area), has apparently been ignored by DHS as it now attempts to speed up border wall construction.
“The frantic pace of wall building along the U.S.-Mexico border completely ignores the project’s serious environmental consequences to wildlife, wildlands and the general ecology of the borderlands region,” says Kim Vacariu, Western Director for the Wildlands Network, a conservation group working to protect cross-border wildlife corridors. “The waiving of the bedrock environmental laws that protect our nation’s natural resources is unconscionable. Construction in the Otay Mountain Wilderness should cease pending immediate and thorough environmental review,” he notes.
William H. Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society, agreed. “We are very concerned about the impacts this wall will cause to wilderness values at Otay,” Meadows said. “Wilderness areas are among the last places in the United States that are untrammeled by humans, and we believe they should stay that way.”
Contacts: Kim Vacariu, Wildlands Network 575-557-0155
Matt Clark, Defenders of Wildlife 520-623-9653
Oliver Bernstein, Sierra Club 512-477-2152
Paul Spitler, The Wilderness Society 202-429-2672
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Communion through the border wall at Friendship Park
By Jason Evans
Every Sunday afternoon, I head down I-5 towards the San Ysidro border crossing. I get off the freeway and head towards Border Field State Park. Within the park, at the most southwest point of San Diego county is Friendship Park, a monument to the friendly relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. When I come up to the monument I am met by familiar faces on both sides of the fence. Mexican men, deported from the U.S., women selling their handmade goods, and families separated from each other by the border, using this unique space as a place to meet, squeezing their fingers through the fence to touch each other; wipe away tears from each others faces. And there are clergy and activists too. We are gathered to celebrate communion. We are gathered to celebrate our unity through the work of Jesus Christ that surpasses fences and walls built by the State.
The Department of Homeland Security has elected to build a new border fence that will run through this special place. 35 laws and regulations have been waived in order to do this. Millions of dollars will go into this project. Several months ago, I went to the meeting with the Army Corps. of Engineers to see how San Diego contractors could get a piece of this work. I may disagree with most of the contractors present on this fence, but they aren’t dumb. Everyone quickly realized that the meeting was a simply a “dog and pony show.” There wasn’t any real work for San Diego contractors. No significant amount of that large amount of money was going back into our economy.
So, as I walk towards that fence every week, looking to the east and seeing the new fence encroaching on this peacable place, I am aware of the undemocratic manner in which it has been erected. I am aware of how unhelpful this is to our local economy. I am aware of the irreprable ecological damage it reeks on God’s creation in this place. I am aware that it will give coyote’s reason to raise prices for human smuggling, making a violent, inhumane industry even more so. I am aware that this means even more people will die in the eastern rural segment of our county, trying to cross in areas manned by fewer Border Patrol agents. I am saddened by this but I feel that our symbolic work every Sunday helps us imagine another world, a world that we continue to work towards establishing even in the face of this large challenge.
During winter months, the park is closed to vehicles. The roads often flood. Instead, my colleagues and I park outside the park gate and hike through the sticky mud, down to the beach and then south towards the monument. Altogether about a mile and a half walk in sand and mud. Not a big ordeal when considering the celebratory moment we are about to participate in. The Friendship Park monument segment in Mexico is part of urban Tijuana. People easily walk up to the Mexican side to meet us, eating cob corn on a stick as they meet with their loved one’s that have not been deported.
A plastic mesh fence was put around the monument the week before Christmas this year. The park was still open to pedestrians and no one has prohibited us from serving communion. So, this week we continued with our usual plan. We turned off the muddy horse path and on to the beach beginning our southward walk. About halfway from the horse path to the monument we were met by two Border Patrol jeeps. We were told that we would be given a citation by State Parks if we went any further. We asked why this wasn’t on their website. The agent did not have a helpful response. This was also curious as the Department of Homeland Security has declared this federal property. Why would the Parks give us a citation and not Border Patrol? We told the young agent that we had people waiting for us at the fence. We needed to get there. He told us he would have to “intervene” if we did that. He would not clarify what this meant. We asked to speak to a supervisor.
About this time, a Border Patrol helicopter flew over us a couple times. A curious show of force. A photo journalist from the LA Times was with us this Sunday. He decided to risk driving up to the monument and was stopped by the State Parks and cited. About the time that it was realized that he was a photo journalist, we were told we could approach the fence near the ocean to do communion, and the “man from the LA Times” would be driven out to meet us if we agreed to stay away from the monument. It seemed clear that they were willing to compromise with us as long as it didn’t mean a scene would be made for the photo journalist to report.
Communion was beautiful this week. It was cold enough to keep the orders of rotting fish, trash and kelp at our feet at bay. At the water, the fence has wider openings. The chalice was able to fit through the fence so that people did not have to squeeze their small bit of tortilla through the opening. I was able to fully grasp my friend Martin’s hand as we prayed. An honor to do with a man who–along with his family–has been through so much. The initial behavior of the Border Patrol ignited a fervor in my fellow clergy, Rev. John Fanestil who brought tears to eyes during his introduction to communion, smoothly moving between Spanish and English.
After saying goodbye to our friends, cleaning up and getting ready to start our walk back, we noticed a couple that had met us at the fence from the San Diego side walking back north. Around 10 people had started the walk back before them, several yards north of them. Two Border Patrol jeeps stormed down the beach cutting off these 2 specific pedestrians. The couple and their young son were brown-skinned Hispanic Americans. No one else had been stopped who had begun walking home. None of the rest of us were brown-skinned as they were… But the Border Patrol will say they do not conduct racial profiling.
It has become even more important for the tight-lipped posture of the agencies in charge of this project and area to be more transparent. At a minimum, it seems realistic to ask for plans for the park to be made public. To date, their has been nearly zero consistency between information released by State Parks and Border Patrol. It’s disconcerting and unlike the democratic society this country claims to be to not involve the public and it’s elected officials in the process of something that so drastically impacts part of the place we call home. We are a long way from Washington D.C. We should be allowed to have a voice in this project.
Even more deeply important to me, is that as a follower of the Great Liberator, Jesus Christ, I do not feel I can stand idly by while powers do not listen to their people, act inhumanely to people based on the color of their skin or place of origin, recklessly destroy God’s creation and line the pockets of corporations who have no intent on benefiting the people who live in the region effected by their work–further gouging the divide between the have’s and have-not’s in a variety of ways. Last night, I asked my faith community to pray for discernment, courage and wisdom as I work with my colleagues in determining how we will continue to respond to this situation. I ask those of you that pray to do the same. I also invite those physically able to join me next Sunday for communion at the border. It is uncertain how much longer we will be able to do this. You may even want to spend the day in Tijuana and meet us on Mexican side. We meet at the fence on Sundays at 3:00 p.m. It would be really great to see a large turn out. It would make a great statement to the people and powers of Tijuana and San Diego. Feel free to contact us for information.
Jason Evans is a co-founder of the Ecclesia Collective and a member of the Hawthorn House.
His essay was originally posted at the Ecclesia Collective's website: http://ecclesiacollective.org/borderland/continued-border-activity
To see the results from the LA Times photojournalist who accompanied him, go to:
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-me-tobar6-2009jan06,0,2887120.column
Every Sunday afternoon, I head down I-5 towards the San Ysidro border crossing. I get off the freeway and head towards Border Field State Park. Within the park, at the most southwest point of San Diego county is Friendship Park, a monument to the friendly relationship between the U.S. and Mexico. When I come up to the monument I am met by familiar faces on both sides of the fence. Mexican men, deported from the U.S., women selling their handmade goods, and families separated from each other by the border, using this unique space as a place to meet, squeezing their fingers through the fence to touch each other; wipe away tears from each others faces. And there are clergy and activists too. We are gathered to celebrate communion. We are gathered to celebrate our unity through the work of Jesus Christ that surpasses fences and walls built by the State.
The Department of Homeland Security has elected to build a new border fence that will run through this special place. 35 laws and regulations have been waived in order to do this. Millions of dollars will go into this project. Several months ago, I went to the meeting with the Army Corps. of Engineers to see how San Diego contractors could get a piece of this work. I may disagree with most of the contractors present on this fence, but they aren’t dumb. Everyone quickly realized that the meeting was a simply a “dog and pony show.” There wasn’t any real work for San Diego contractors. No significant amount of that large amount of money was going back into our economy.
So, as I walk towards that fence every week, looking to the east and seeing the new fence encroaching on this peacable place, I am aware of the undemocratic manner in which it has been erected. I am aware of how unhelpful this is to our local economy. I am aware of the irreprable ecological damage it reeks on God’s creation in this place. I am aware that it will give coyote’s reason to raise prices for human smuggling, making a violent, inhumane industry even more so. I am aware that this means even more people will die in the eastern rural segment of our county, trying to cross in areas manned by fewer Border Patrol agents. I am saddened by this but I feel that our symbolic work every Sunday helps us imagine another world, a world that we continue to work towards establishing even in the face of this large challenge.
During winter months, the park is closed to vehicles. The roads often flood. Instead, my colleagues and I park outside the park gate and hike through the sticky mud, down to the beach and then south towards the monument. Altogether about a mile and a half walk in sand and mud. Not a big ordeal when considering the celebratory moment we are about to participate in. The Friendship Park monument segment in Mexico is part of urban Tijuana. People easily walk up to the Mexican side to meet us, eating cob corn on a stick as they meet with their loved one’s that have not been deported.
A plastic mesh fence was put around the monument the week before Christmas this year. The park was still open to pedestrians and no one has prohibited us from serving communion. So, this week we continued with our usual plan. We turned off the muddy horse path and on to the beach beginning our southward walk. About halfway from the horse path to the monument we were met by two Border Patrol jeeps. We were told that we would be given a citation by State Parks if we went any further. We asked why this wasn’t on their website. The agent did not have a helpful response. This was also curious as the Department of Homeland Security has declared this federal property. Why would the Parks give us a citation and not Border Patrol? We told the young agent that we had people waiting for us at the fence. We needed to get there. He told us he would have to “intervene” if we did that. He would not clarify what this meant. We asked to speak to a supervisor.About this time, a Border Patrol helicopter flew over us a couple times. A curious show of force. A photo journalist from the LA Times was with us this Sunday. He decided to risk driving up to the monument and was stopped by the State Parks and cited. About the time that it was realized that he was a photo journalist, we were told we could approach the fence near the ocean to do communion, and the “man from the LA Times” would be driven out to meet us if we agreed to stay away from the monument. It seemed clear that they were willing to compromise with us as long as it didn’t mean a scene would be made for the photo journalist to report.
Communion was beautiful this week. It was cold enough to keep the orders of rotting fish, trash and kelp at our feet at bay. At the water, the fence has wider openings. The chalice was able to fit through the fence so that people did not have to squeeze their small bit of tortilla through the opening. I was able to fully grasp my friend Martin’s hand as we prayed. An honor to do with a man who–along with his family–has been through so much. The initial behavior of the Border Patrol ignited a fervor in my fellow clergy, Rev. John Fanestil who brought tears to eyes during his introduction to communion, smoothly moving between Spanish and English.
After saying goodbye to our friends, cleaning up and getting ready to start our walk back, we noticed a couple that had met us at the fence from the San Diego side walking back north. Around 10 people had started the walk back before them, several yards north of them. Two Border Patrol jeeps stormed down the beach cutting off these 2 specific pedestrians. The couple and their young son were brown-skinned Hispanic Americans. No one else had been stopped who had begun walking home. None of the rest of us were brown-skinned as they were… But the Border Patrol will say they do not conduct racial profiling.
It has become even more important for the tight-lipped posture of the agencies in charge of this project and area to be more transparent. At a minimum, it seems realistic to ask for plans for the park to be made public. To date, their has been nearly zero consistency between information released by State Parks and Border Patrol. It’s disconcerting and unlike the democratic society this country claims to be to not involve the public and it’s elected officials in the process of something that so drastically impacts part of the place we call home. We are a long way from Washington D.C. We should be allowed to have a voice in this project.
Even more deeply important to me, is that as a follower of the Great Liberator, Jesus Christ, I do not feel I can stand idly by while powers do not listen to their people, act inhumanely to people based on the color of their skin or place of origin, recklessly destroy God’s creation and line the pockets of corporations who have no intent on benefiting the people who live in the region effected by their work–further gouging the divide between the have’s and have-not’s in a variety of ways. Last night, I asked my faith community to pray for discernment, courage and wisdom as I work with my colleagues in determining how we will continue to respond to this situation. I ask those of you that pray to do the same. I also invite those physically able to join me next Sunday for communion at the border. It is uncertain how much longer we will be able to do this. You may even want to spend the day in Tijuana and meet us on Mexican side. We meet at the fence on Sundays at 3:00 p.m. It would be really great to see a large turn out. It would make a great statement to the people and powers of Tijuana and San Diego. Feel free to contact us for information.
Jason Evans is a co-founder of the Ecclesia Collective and a member of the Hawthorn House.
His essay was originally posted at the Ecclesia Collective's website: http://ecclesiacollective.org/borderland/continued-border-activity
To see the results from the LA Times photojournalist who accompanied him, go to:
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-me-tobar6-2009jan06,0,2887120.column
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