One border, two cities: between San Diego (California) and Tijuana (Baja California, Mexico), on the edge of the Pacific, a dizzying double barrier symbolizes the withdrawal of the United States into itself, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Reporting.
Photo Pauline Laplace
San Diego, mid-October 2024, late morning. The mainstay of the initiative “ Border Church » (Border church), Robert, brown cap and adventurer’s face, raises his hands along the dizzying rust-colored border barrier, then extends them towards the sky. The dozen other people attending the service do the same, overcome with religious fervor. Alleluia. And may God help those who suffer in their crossing of the border – here two ramparts of more than ten meters, separated by a sort of no man’s land Sorry.
“Most often, migrants are deported to Mexico unless they certify that they are in mortal danger – and then again. »
On the other side of the metal bars buried in the ground like giant railway rails spaced about twenty centimeters apart, a young man suddenly appears, looking hunted, at the end of his rope. He is Colombian and religious. If he wants to commune via a tiny ration of red wine, he is above all thirsty and hungry. He is soon joined by around twenty other exiles who have jumped the first barrier. They are Indian, Sri Lankan, Colombian – all men. Between two walls, they wait for the Border Patrol (United States border patrol) comes to ratify their entry into United States territory, in order to launch the asylum procedure. What is not won, explains Robert: “ Most often, they are deported to Mexico immediately, unless they immediately certify that they are in danger of death – and even then. »
Robert and his friends do what they can: pray, give some information, bottles of water or bags of chips through the bars. But for the twenty people captured, the result will undoubtedly be the same: expulsion. Before they try their luck again, elsewhere, in a less monitored – and more deadly – place like the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.
United States of repli sur soi
It’s damn easy to see the border obsession in the United States. Just listen or read the speeches of the two candidates for the supreme office, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris – the first always pushing the rhetorical limit further into ignominy1the second converting to an eminently rigorous discourse on the need for “ strong borders ».
Photo Pauline Laplace
As a social worker in a reception center for migrant families in Tijuana summarizes: “ If Trump is more explicitly racist, we have seen Biden continue his policy, raising the walls and further complicating asylum conditions. » In particular, measures passed in June 2024 by Joe Biden which drastically restrict the number of people who can request asylum and condemn those concerned to wait for long months on Mexican soil if they do not wish to attempt the clandestine crossing2.
“If Trump is more explicitly racist, we have seen Biden continue his policy, raising the walls and further complicating asylum conditions”
On October 13, we attended a meeting of notable Republicans from San Diego County, at a posh suburban hotel, the Legacy Resort. The party begins around 7 p.m., in front of an audience of around a hundred people, with varied profiles, but not very “popular”. On the stage, life-size figurines of Trump as Rambo or Superman, and speakers, in suits or business suits, who devote a good part of their speaking time to “ migratory threat ”, after having prayed all together “ to protect America from Marxists, enemies […] and the invasion of migrants “. Around ten candidates for local elections3 come one after the other, making tons of them on the wall and the expulsions to come. Special guest, an Instagrammer who “ filmed the border » is presented as the equivalent of a great reporter. She speaks of ” open border » (open borders), of « national security threat » (threat to the security of the country) or “ chaos “. In the images, we see her managing to slip through a gap under a border barrier, a way of denouncing the porosity of the system under Biden. “ This is why we need Trump’s wall », she concludes.
Over time and mandates, the wall has grown, strengthened, preventing contacts and exchanges
This word is easily spread outside Republican circles. Several interlocutors, taxi drivers, academics, each explain to us in their own way that a form of “habit” to Trump’s outbursts has taken hold, that the hundreds of deaths each year at the border4 are obscured by the excess of the chief provocateur. Haitians eat patriots’ pets, Mexicans are all rapists, etc. It has become the norm. And a dialogue from the immense author of noir novels and claimed enemy of Trumpism, Don Winslow (whose masterpiece is a trilogy written over ten years and recounting the violence of the border on the drug war side), is imposes as a reading grid:
– « Is he crazy? » asked Marisol.
– « He throws mud at the wall to see if it sticks. »5
Friendship Park: friendship denied
In 1971, the wife of the hated American president Richard Nixon, Pat Nixon, inaugurated a space on the San Diego and Tijuana border: Friendship Park. After planting a tree, she expressed her wish that the small separation barrier then in place would eventually fall. Other times. Since the beginning of the 2000s, what was a cross-border space, straddling the two countries, where families and friends could communicate, meet on either side of the barrier, to exchange news, share a picnic or basking in the sun, and even touching each other through the bars, has continued to become militarized. Over time and mandates, the wall grew and strengthened, preventing contacts and exchanges. It has even doubled, with a final portion built in 2023 under the Biden administration. Despite the founding of a collective called Friends of Friendship Park, attempting to bring this space to life, the possibilities for meetings declined in the shadow of the wall, until the place was completely closed. The park is currently inaccessible on the United States side.
Photo Pauline Laplace
“I am Mexican, but I consider myself a “fronteriza”: a person who lives on both sides, speaks both languages, shares cultures”
We find Dan, met in San Diego, on the Mexican side of the park, and on the border. The atmosphere is not the same as the neighbor with the star-spangled banner. Behind him, the wall is decorated with paintings, including one showing Trump and Biden making out, with the slogan “Tear down this wall”. The latter anchors here, right up to the Pacific Ocean, flown over by seabirds and helicopters. Dan, who makes his living as a Spanish teacher in San Diego, devotes much of his time to maintaining the park on the Tijuana side. He lives in the most northwest apartment in the whole country, very close to the park, and overlooking the wall, and seems literally obsessed with the double fence. Like many residents near the border, on both sides of what some call “Amexico,” he feels he does not have to choose between two worlds that are so similar.
This is also the case for his fellow fighter Nancy: “ I’m Mexican, but I consider myself border [frontalière]. A person who lives on both sides, speaks both languages, shares cultures. And it is precisely this duality that the wall affects, which destroys everything, from communities to the surrounding nature. »
Dan, like Nancy and Robert, are involved in cross-border struggles that aim to overcome the barrier. Whether it is denouncing the pollution of the Pacific by a river on the American side or demanding a symbolic meeting space through the bars, they do not intend to allow withdrawal into oneself to win, recalling that on both sides there are humans, and we don’t stop life’s journey with a wall.
