A sign hung by the Raza Rights Coalition hangs on the Mexican sideof the border fence in Friendship Park Photo: AP
Symbolic Park Makes Way For New Fences On US-Mexico Border -- The Daily Telegraph
A beachfront plaza founded over 30 years ago as a symbol of goodwill between the US and Mexico border is being closed to make way for a giant, reinforced fence.
Friendship Park, between Imperial Beach in California and Tijuana in Mexico, was dedicated by Patricia Nixon, then first lady, in the early 1970s, and has long been a popular meeting and picnic spot.
Although a chain-link fence divides the space along the border, the barrier allows people on either side, often those separated by immigration status, to have contact, share food, talk and kiss.
But the US Border Patrol has ordered the area, part of the Border Field State Park, be permanently closed to the public and a secondary, solid border fence be erected north of the existing fence stretching out to the Pacific Ocean.
The US is already developing plans for a "surge" of force to tackle the escalating bloodshed from Mexico's brutal drug wars, should the violence spill across the border.
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More News On Mexico's Drug War
Feds have plan if Mexico drug violence spills over -- AP
In Mexico, Curbing Violence Before It Is Learned -- New York Times
US, Mexican Presidents to Meet on Drug Crime -- Voice Of America
Bush to meet Mexican president in Washington -- AFP
Obama to meet with Mexican president -- MSNBC