Friendship Park (San Diego - Tijuana)

Friendship Park is a park along the United States-Mexico border in San Diego–Tijuana. It is within Border Field State Park, a California state park, and includes the border fence dividing the two countries. It was dedicated in 1971 by Pat Nixon. In 2009, the park was closed for the construction of additional border fencing. Since the secondary fence was completed, access to the park (now within the secondary fence) has been severely restricted. The small park is situated in the southwestern corner of the United States, with Tijuana to the south and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

The U.S. Border Patrol allows public access to the U.S. side of the park on Saturdays and Sundays between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Friendship Park was dedicated on August 18, 1971 by First Lady Pat Nixon. For many years there was no border fence, and later only a monument and chain-link fence. Border security was tightened in the 1990s and again after the terrorism attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security closed down Friendship Park in order to construct a new fence. In 2012, under pressure from the public and activist groups, the federal government agreed to reopen the park with an outer perimeter fence blocking access to the public except when permitted by the U.S. Border Patrol, which controls access to the park. The fence dividing the two countries is now a thick, dense steel mesh that is difficult to see through. Instead of holding hands, people can just barely touch the tips of their fingers through openings in the steel wire.

Due to the work of the humanitarian organization Border Angels and its founder Enrique Morones, the U.S. government now allows a door in the fence at Friendship Park to be opened briefly on Children's Day, a holiday celebrated in April in Mexico. The first such event took place in 2013, and it was repeated in 2015 and 2016. When it is opened, Border Patrol officers lift a steel girder that locks a solitary gate in the fence from the U.S. side. Children and adults from pre-selected families divided by the border are allowed to meet and embrace briefly.

Until mid-2009, a single chain-link fence marked the international border within the park. People on opposite sides of the border were able to touch and pass objects through the barrier.United Methodist pastor John Fanestil served communion through the fence during 2008 and 2009.

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