On Tuesday morning, a group of more than a dozen activists marched silently back and forth along the sidewalk outside the San Diego Border Patrol Headquarters in Chula Vista.
They wore signs on their necks or carried posters demanding that the Biden istration stop its plans to build 30-foot border wall around Friendship Park, a historic binational meeting place in the southwesternmost corner of the U.S.-Mexico border. The collective Friends of Friendship Park said they would return and repeat the demonstration every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday until the Biden istration responds to them.
“Donald Trump’s wall should not be completed in California. Californians deserve better,” John Fanestil of Friends of Friendship Park said after the march. He noted that he is referring to both residents of the state of California in the U.S. as well as those in Mexico’s Baja California.
He said the park has historical, ecological, cultural and social significance for the region, including the fact that it holds the first boundary monument constructed by survey teams from the two nations in the mid-1800s. The park is most known as a place where people who aren’t able to cross the border go to visit and touch loved ones through the fence.
Customs and Border Protection has said that the construction project is necessary because the current, shorter structures have become unsafe. The Department of Homeland Security paused construction last year to gather from stakeholders, including Friends of Friendship Park. Last week, CBP announced it would move ahead with the project and that it had made adjustments that it believed would satisfy community concerns.
However, according to Fanestil — who met with CBP about the design after the announcement — the 30-foot bollard style wall, which was a design implemented under the Trump istration in many areas of the border, will still be used for most of the project. The concession from CBP is to keep a small section of one layer of wall at the current 18-foot height for a 60-foot stretch. The secondary layer of wall will still be 30 feet tall in that area.
Dan Watman of Friends of Friendship Park called the change a token gesture. He and the other of the collective said they feel that their voices were not heard, and the silence during Tuesday’s march was meant to symbolize this.
After about a half-hour of marching, they held a rally and chanted, “Whose park? Our park!” as well as “Biden, Biden you can’t hide — we can see your Trump-y side!”
Fanestil then tried to deliver a letter intended for DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to the Border Patrol headquarters, but the door was locked. No one came to open it despite his knocks. Border Patrol did not respond to a question about why the door was locked during business hours.
The letter contains a letter for President Joe Biden, which is available for the public to read and sign on the Friends of Friendship Park website.
Adriana Jasso of Friends of Friendship Park said she ed the first silent march the collective held back in 2008 when the second layer of fencing was going up.
“We’ve been fighting this fight for many years,” she said. “We feel that we have an incredible level of and people are watching and listening and eager to say, ‘Tell me how I can help.'”
