Border wall plans paused

The Biden administration yesterday agreed to pause plans for a double border wall that critics say would effectively destroy a 51-year-old oceanfront park that symbolises friendship between the United States and Mexico. US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus said he wanted to hear community concerns before settling on a wall design for Friendship Park, which then-first lady Pat Nixon inaugurated 1971. For decades, park visitors could easily converse between San Diego and Tijuana but access gradually diminished from the US over the past 15 years. Magnus, a former police chief of Tucson, Arizona, who took office in December, ordered the pause a week after Friends of Friendship Park met with Border Patrol officials to ask for a 120-day halt to construction, which was expected to begin shortly.