Border Fence Will Shut Down Popular U.S. Park
Thursday, Jan 8, 2009 | Updated 11:47 AM PDT
Getty Images/David McNew
The sun sets behind a section of the US-Mexico border fence.
A legislative aide and activists say the Border Patrol will close a popular park on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean to make way for a triple fence along the Mexican border.
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The Border Patrol had been mum on whether Friendship Park would be affected by plans to erect more than 670 miles of barriers along the southern U.S. border. The park draws big crowds from both sides, where people chat through a chain-link fence separating Imperial Beach and Tijuana, Mexico.
An aide to state Sen. Denise Ducheny says by May, the half-acre plaza inside Border Field State Park is expected to be gone, replaced by three fences separated by about 125 feet.
A Border Patrol spokesman says he is unaware of any decision on the park's fate.
