On the Mexico side of the border, Trump’s visit spurs protests.
Area residents say proposed wall would divide families along border
TIJUANA, Mexico — As President Donald Trump viewed eight construction prototypes in one country, about a hundred people gathered in another just steps away, but on the other side of a fence so solid it is already sometimes called a wall.
“No to the wall,” the protesters repeatedly chanted into a loudspeaker. They hung several banners along the Mexico-facing side of the old metal fencing. If Trump’s campaign promise becomes reality, that metal fence might be replaced with a taller wall like the ones he toured Tuesday.
“We won’t pay for your wall,” one banner declared. During his campaign, Trump promised to build a, “big, beautiful wall,” and pledged Mexico would pay for it. But the crowd in Tijuana was overwhelmingly opposed to these ideas. Their position was not political, but personal: They said it would drive a wedge between families in this border region.
Yolanda Varona lived in the San Diego area for nearly two decades and was deported seven years ago. Since then, she said, she hasn’t seen her 22-year-old daughter, who gained a work permit through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“Walls only bring devastation, pain and separation of families,” said Varona, who is part of an international group of deported mothers. About 50 protesters came from a shelter for deported migrants.
Daniel Watson, a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana, held a sign reading, in Spanish, “Parks, not walls.”
At San Diego’s Friendship Park, which sits between two border barriers, families and loved ones can talk through metal mesh fencing. Last month, U.S. Customs and Border Protection began limiting those conversations to 30 minutes. Watson called for the construction of an open park in San Diego with no walls.
“The separation results in people not getting to know each other,” he said, and that plants the seeds of stereotypes and racism. “The antidote to violence is getting to know each other,” he said.
Many said the wall would threaten the longstanding economic and cultural connections between the two countries.
Artist Enrique Chiu has spent nearly a decade painting positive messages on the Mexico side of the border wall. One of his murals in this area features a hand; it’s positioned to look as if it’s holding up one of the prototypes, the way someone would hold up a cellphone.
Hugo Castro, a member of Border Angels, grasped white crosses to symbolize the migrants who have died trying to cross into the United States. The group leads guided trips to the desert to place water along migrant crossing routes.
In an increasingly globalized world, “it’s impossible to cut the strong ties between the United States and Mexico,” Castro said. He wore a shirt printed with “Bad hombres,” a nod to an inflammatory comment Trump made last year during a diplomatic conversation with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
The proposed border wall is expected to cost billions of dollars. Trump has said funding for construction of the wall is a requirement for any immigration legislation, though work on the subject has stalled in Congress.
So, on the American and Mexican sides of the border, Trump’s visit became as much about the idea of a wall as the reality.
About 50 Mexican federal police had cordoned off a chunk of the Tijuana neighborhood near the prototypes.
The crowd stayed about 60 feet back. The protesters couldn’t see the president himself.
But from their position, they had prime views of the 30-foot-tall prototypes. Like the idea of the wall, the prototypes themselves seem to tower over the border, and over the older, shorter steel fence.
The new walls are concrete and stark. The old fence is painted with colorful murals and graffiti.
During the president’s visit, Chiu, the artist, tried to tower above the fence, too. He hoisted a red and green banner reading, “No walls.”
“We want peace between the two nations,” he said.