State Sen. Ben Hueso joined a rising refrain of San Diegans opposing federal plans to improve the border wall and enhance separation at Friendship Park.
“The operation of Friendship Park doesn’t pose a risk to frame safety, whereas the advantages of this iconic website offers a connection between households separated by immigration insurance policies,” Hueso mentioned on Friday.
Hueso, a Democrat, referred to as on the Biden Administration and Division of Homeland Safety to pause plans to improve the wall and work with neighborhood organizations to protect what he referred to as a “binational image of hope.”
“Since its creation over 50 years in the past, Friendship Park in Imperial Seaside has been a logo of hope for 2 communities united by a single imaginative and prescient,” Hueso mentioned. “Extra just lately, Friendship Park’s Friendship Circle has offered a gathering place the place U.S. households can go to their deported members of the family.”
In the course of the park’s dedication in1971, First Woman Pat Nixon ordered a stretch of barbed wire fence be lower out so she might cross into Mexico to satisfy a crowd that had gathered to welcome her to the border.
The park has been closed for the reason that starting of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. DHS reportedly plans to construct two extra partitions parallel to the present limitations, rising the separation on the park in order that households can’t attain via the fence or doubtlessly even see one another.
“It’s disappointing to see the Biden Administration take these actions which is able to undo a long time of neighborhood constructing work by native organizations on each side of the border,” Hueso mentioned. “I hope the Division of Homeland Safety pauses these plans and begins to work with neighborhood organizations, like Mates of Friendship Park, to discover a resolution which preserves Friendship Park and the imaginative and prescient it sought to create over 50 years in the past.”
