Families Divided by Border Meet Across the Fence at Tijuana's Friendship Park Valerie Hamilton - PRI's The World
go to original May 7, 2013

Gate at Tijuana's Friendship Park opens for first time ever. Father sees daughter for first time. (pjfurlong06)

The US-Mexico border starts on a bluff overlooking the Pacific, half of it in Tijuana and half in San Diego, California. A 17-foot metal fence splits this place in two; on the Mexico side, there’s a paved city plaza behind the bullring, and on the US side, a no-man’s land patrolled by border guards.

But on weekends, the two sides are reunited, a place where families separated by immigration status can spend time together, at least on either side of the barrier.

Jimena Angulo, 5, has never met her father. She was born in Tijuana; her father, Luis, is a US citizen, but he has legal problems, so for now he can’t travel to Mexico. They’re meeting today for the first time – on opposite sides of the fence.

“A friend of mine told me you can come to this park to see your family. Far, but you can see them,” says Luis.

Families separated by the border have been meeting here for decades, since the fence was just a strand of barbed wire leading out toward the beach. First Lady Pat Nixon inaugurated the park in 1971, saying she would “hate to see a fence” between the two countries. The US built the first real wall in the 1990s to stop illegal immigration at the border’s western edge. In 2009, a second fence behind the first one penned off the US side.

It’s not a very welcoming place.

Read the rest at PRI's The World

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