TO: Mr. Paul Enriquez / Real Estate and Environmental Infrastructure Portfolio Deputy Director / Program Management Office Directorate / U.S. Border Patrol

FROM: Concerned Faith Leaders

via email to: sandiegocomments@cbp.dhs.gov

Dear Mr. Enriquez:

We are responding to your requests for community input regarding the westernmost 0.6 miles of border barrier.

Here is our response: Building higher walls at Friendship Park transgresses the doctrines of compassion and welcome embodied in our faith traditions. We enjoin you and other officials at U.S. Customs and Border Protection to heed the justice inherent in such life-giving teachings and respond accordingly.

Bigger walls are an abandonment of the just intentions described as “relations of peace and friendship” in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo as the foundation of relations between the United States and Mexico. Moreover, the decimation of that section of the border to be wrought by uglier, more hazardous border barriers flies in the face of the hope then-First Lady Pat Nixon expressed in calling this place “International Friendship Park” when she visited both sides in 1971.

The area of proposed border wall construction is also of tremendous importance to our faith communities in both Mexico and the United States. It would further dampen the free exercise of religion in binational practices such as The Border Church, the Border Mosque, Via Crucis, and La Posada sin Fronteras. These gatherings at the physical wall have already been prohibited at Friendship Park since before the pandemic began. We lament the lack of access afforded our communities by San Diego Border Patrol officials and hope that this lack will be remedied. Our fervent hope is that insult not be added to this injury with the construction of 30-foot walls.

Before February of 2020, generations from both nations had been able to connect for friendship, family, and faith at Friendship Park. Bigger walls with greater obstruction would further separate members of our faith communities from their loved ones, including thousands belonging to transnational families for whom this is the only place they can see each other in the flesh. It would further undermine the purposes of the Binational Friendship Garden of Native Plants.

The proposed plans to build two 30-foot walls across the face of Friendship Park constitute a desecration of this landmark venue and an existential threat to its very existence. We, the undersigned, implore you to:

1. Cancel plans for new 30-foot walls at Friendship Park to comply with the Biden Administration’s pledge, as stated in its June 2021 Plan for Use of Border Barrier Funds, to “end wall expansion to the extent permitted by law.”

2. Repair the existing barriers to address the safety concerns identified in CBP’s notice of September 12, 2022.

3. Invest instead in the forward-looking conversation that is unfolding with community stakeholders, spearheaded by the Friends of Friendship Park.

Sincerely,