At a border fence, families are so close and yet so far
Andres Gallegos Arguello stood on the American side of a metallic mesh fence in Friendship Circle between San Diego and Tijuana. His mother and father stood on the other side.
It was a family reunion under the close watch of the Border Patrol agents that chaperone all such meetings.
“How are you, my son?” Eva Arguello, 71, asked her son as tears welled in her eyes. “I really want to hug you.”
Gallegos, 33, reached through the mesh and grazed his mother’s pinky. “I’m just happy to see you,” he told her.
As the gate gains prominence in immigration circles, there is a new effort by some to make this stretch of border more accessible. The Let Them Hug petition asks that the Border Patrol let people get together in a spot where they can hug and kiss if they want to.
The fence has been an unlikely meeting place for families divided by immigration policy. Every week, hundreds make the pilgrimage there, some traveling from as far east as New Jersey.
To those for whom crossing into Mexico or the U.S. is a fraught affair with no guaranteed return, the fence is the best they can do when they want to see people they love.
Every four months, Noemi Medrano leaves her home in Sacramento to meet her mother, Carmen Urrea, 60, who travels from Sinaloa. They have not hugged in six years.
Earlier this year, when Medrano — who is temporarily protected from deportation as long as she doesn’t leave the U.S. — told her mother that she was pregnant, they touched fingers through the metal mesh. Medrano said she would return next year with her infant son.
The Border Patrol opposes making this span of border less restrictive. Richard E. Smith, assistant chief for the Border Patrol in San Diego, said the agency opposes the idea, calling it “a vulnerability and level of risk to national security that are not acceptable at this time.”
The metallic mesh — which prevents people on each side from touching — was installed in 2011 as a security measure.
Every April families are allowed to hug in a media event, said Friends of Friendship Park organizer John Fanestil, a Methodist minister who gives a weekly service of communion at the U.S.-Mexico border. Coordinating with an immigrant advocacy group, the San Diego Border Patrol opens a gate on the border fence, allowing loved ones to reunite for a few minutes on the Mexican side.
Gallegos and his son, Saiid, 10, visited the boy’s grandparents.
Gallegos is in the process of becoming a legal resident but can’t leave the U.S. without risking his return. A month ago, he visited with his mother and father, Andres Gallegos Saenz, 76, at the park after not having set eyes on them in more than two years.
Getting up from his wheelchair and leaning on his cane, Gallegos’ father got close to the fence.
“At least I can see him,” he said of his son.