US pauses plans for new border walls at oceanfront Friendship Park
Source: Associated Press
US pauses plans for new border walls at oceanfront park
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
August 5, 2022
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday agreed to pause plans for a double border wall that critics say would effectively destroy a 51-year-old oceanfront park that symbolizes friendship between the United States and Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus said he wanted to hear community concerns before settling on a wall design for Friendship Park, which then-first lady Pat Nixon inaugurated 1971. For decades, park visitors could easily converse between San Diego and Tijuana but access gradually diminished from the U.S. over the last 15 years and stopped entirely for more than two years.
Magnus, a former police chief of Tucson, Arizona, who took office December, ordered the pause a week after Friends of Friendship Park met with Border Patrol officials to ask for a 120-day halt to construction, which was expected to begin shortly.
“We have heard concerns about the project as currently planned, and it is important to me to be responsive to the local community on this issue,” Magnus said. “I look forward to continued conversations with the community regarding this project during the pause.”
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/religion-mexico-arizona-united-states-san-diego-f68db6c8a9f348898aa55aea4500459b
FILE - A man looks through the first wall at Friendship Park, near where the border separating Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego meets the Pacific Ocean on Jan. 19, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico. U.S. border officials have halted plans to build new wall sections at historic Friendship Park between Southern California and Mexico after a public outcry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022, that it was suspending work in order to "engage with community stakeholders." (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
FILE - People look at the monument at Friendship Park, near where the border separating Tijuana, Mexico, and San Diego meets the Pacific Ocean Thursday, Jan. 19, 2021, in Tijuana, Mexico. U.S. border officials have halted plans to build new wall sections at historic Friendship Park between Southern California and Mexico after a public outcry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022, that it was suspending work in order to "engage with community stakeholders." (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)