Of Borders, Fences, and Global Environmentalism

They say that political boundaries are fictitious and arbitrary lines. At the US-Mexico border, however, that line is not just an imaginary concept but also a tangible, physical structure. Metal fences run along the border from San Diego, California to Brownsville, Texas. In the vicinity of its Pacific Ocean endpoint, the San Diego-Tijuana area, the fence is fourteen feet high.

Hundreds of names are scrawled on the Mexican side of the fence, memorializing those who have died in their attempts to enter the US under the Immigration and Naturalization Service's ("INS") Operation Gatekeeper. Before running more than a hundred yards into the Pacific Ocean, the fence divides a park that straddles the border. The park, dedicated by Pat Nixon in 1971, is named Parque de la Amistad- Friendship Park. [CONT]