New Fence Will Split a Border Park
...Friendship Park [Calif.] here has stood out as a spot where international neighbors can chat easily over the fence. Or through it, anyway. Families and friends, some of them unable to cross the border because of legal or immigration trouble, exchange kisses, tamales and news through small gaps in the tattered chain-link fence...
...But in a sign of changing times, new border fencing that the Department of Homeland Security is counting on to help curtail illegal crossings and attacks on Border Patrol agents will slice through the park, limiting access to the monument and fence-side socializing.
In addition to the fence, a second, steel mesh barrier will line the border for several yards on the United States side, creating a no-man’s land intended to slow or stop crossings.
...But Border Patrol officials, who regularly post agents there, said the park had an underside. Although much activity may be innocent, smugglers have taken advantage by passing drugs and contraband through openings. People have even tried to pass babies through ragged metal slats that mark the border on the beach, said Michael J. Fisher, the chief patrol agent in San Diego. The agency now operates a checkpoint to screen people leaving the park.
...“We cannot,” he added, “have it open, not at the expense of reducing the ability to patrol the border.”
The new fencing is part of a 14-mile project to reinforce and build new barriers from the ocean to areas east of the Otay Mesa port of entry. The project includes filling in a deep valley known as Smuggler’s Gulch, a notorious crossing point just east of the park, with tons of dirt, to the dismay of environmentalists...
So, why is Condi Rice, et al., always complaining about Israel harrassing?
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