Biden Administration plans to “replace” 30-foot walls at Friendship Park to finish border wall

Friendship Park coalition in San Diego will be permanently closed in order for the wall to be completed

SAN DIEGO (KYMA, KECY) - The Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas approved plans to build two 30-foot walls across Friendship Park, the historic location at the western-most end of the US-Mexico border south of San Diego.

According to Assistant Chief of San Diego Border Patrol Alfonso Martinez and Imperial Beach Station Chief Justin De La Torre, there will be no pedestrian gate with the secondary wall.

“U.S. Border Patrol says they are just ‘replacing walls’ at Friendship Park, but the proposed construction amounts to a permanent closure of the U.S. side of this historic location,” says John Fanestil, convener of the San Diego-based Friends of Friendship Park coalition.

Construction should be starting within a few weeks and the plans to launch is close to completion.

Real Estate and Environmental Infrastructure Portfolio Deputy Director for U.S. Border Patrol Paul Enriquez mentions how the border will extend the 30-foot "bollard-style" walls that were built in 2019.

Construction will be completing a project funded in Fiscal Year 2018 that use designs authorized by the Trump administration.

The double border wall's first system at Friendship Park allowed families to reunite through the primary wall by going through a pedestrian gate in the secondary wall during visitor hours conducted by the San Diego Border Patrol.