Thread: Tijuana residents face loss of structures too close to U.S. border fence

Tijuana residents face loss of structures too close to U.S. border fence



Sandra Dibble Contact Reporter

From property barriers to wood shacks to cluttered backyard patios, dozens of structures south of the U.S. border fence face demolition as the Trump administration moves forward on its plans to build a taller, stronger wall separating the United States from Mexico.

The issue has arisen as work gets underway on a $147-million U.S. government project to replace about 14 miles of the existing scrap metal border fence between Tijuana and San Diego. The new structure is a bollard-style barrier rising from 18 to 30 feet, topped with an anti-climbing plate and described as “one of the Border Patrol’s top priority projects.”

At the far western end of the project, some 20 property owners in Playas de Tijuana have been ordered by the municipal government to remove structures built so close to the fence that they are deemed to be encroaching on U.S. territory. Farther east in Colonia Libertad, bulldozers already have begun removing trees rising in a residential neighborhood south of the border fence.

At Tijuana’s northeastern edge, residents of the impoverished Nido de las Aguilas neighborhood say they have heard a new wall is coming—and are worried they might lose their houses.

“You might say these boards are ugly, but for us they are everything,” said Beatríz Esparza, a 41-year-old widow who lives in a room built with scrap wood by her late husband next to the fence. “The president of the United States, maybe he has a lot of money, but we are poor.”

Authorities in Mexico do not have a definitive count, but expect the construction of the new U.S. barrier will displace dozens of structures south of the existing fence.

These include concrete block walls, wooden shanties, outhouses, patios, animal enclosures—and at least one carport, a tennis court and a shrine with an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe that is attached to the existing wall.

Also facing removal are trees and gardens that rise south of the existing barrier.

“The fact that they are on the Mexican side of the wall does not mean that they’re in Mexico,” said Roberto Espinosa. He heads the Tijuana office of the Comisión International de Límites y Aguas, the Mexican counterpart of the U.S. International Boundary and Water Commission, a bi-national agency that oversees compliance with water and boundary treaties.

“People think that the fence is the boundary line and that is not so,” Espinosa said.

The existing border fence typically stands some two or three feet inside U.S. territory. The new fencing project will follow the same line as the old one, but it will be larger and heavier, thus requiring removal of any trees and structures in its way, authorities said.


In the Terrazas de Mendoza enclave of Playas de Tijuana, some 20 property owners have been notified that any fences, carports, tennis courts and other structures within a meter of the U.S. border fence will have to come down. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Acting at the request of the Mexican branch of the boundary commission, the city sent out initial notices in April to 20 property owners in the Playas de Tijuana neighborhood. They are all inside a quiet and gated enclave of several dozen houses known as Terrazas de Mendoza that offers sweeping views of Border Field State Park and the Pacific Ocean.

The San Diego Union-Tribune was able to see a notice that informed one owner that her property’s mesh fence, arch-shaped wall and tennis court were “affecting the border line.”

Legally, there should be no construction within 20 meters, about 65 feet of the border, said Leopoldo Guerrero, the second-highest-ranking official at Tijuana City Hall. But authorities say that in this case, they only are asking property owners to clear out structures within one meter of the border fence, to ensure that they are not encroaching on U.S. territory and subject to demolition.

This month, the city has been sending out a second round of notices to these residents. “Right now, it’s a recommendation,” Guerrero said. “We’re telling them, ‘I’m giving you the opportunity to do this and let them work, so that you can’t come back later and complain,” if the structures end up being torn down by the U.S. contractor charged with building the new barrier.

While the issue is flaring up with the construction of the new wall, its origins go back more than a century. Both the U.S. and Mexican sides of the commission in 1906 recommended that their governments establish 60-foot strips along both sides of the international boundary forbidding private residences or similar constructions.

A year later, President Theodore Roosevelt issued a proclamation ordering a 60-foot-wide strip to serve “as a protection against the smuggling of goods between the United States” and Mexico. The parcels “may be used for public highways but for no other purpose whatsoever,” it said.

Mexico took similar action in 1943, with a decree from Mexico’s finance ministry, saying that structures by the boundary line “lend themselves to hiding subjects who are violating the laws of the country due to the easy reach to the borders of other countries.”

In Terrazas de Mendoza last week, one resident who spoke on condition that he not be named said he is being asked to remove two walls that he built to protect his property from smugglers, thieves, and other criminals. “Nobody is watching over this stretch,” said the resident, saying that an open strip will invite crime.

He was not adverse to complying, but disputed the city’s notification process and was not going to respond. “The law says that notifications must be in person, but they left them in mailboxes, with neighbors, with workers who were on their way out,” the resident said.


Jose Arias walked along the border fence near his house, where he built a shrine honoring his late wife and son that will have to be torn down when the existing fence is removed to make way for a new one. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune)

In Colonia Libertad, longtime resident José Arias faces destruction of a concrete block shrine to the Virgin of Guadalupe that memorializes his late wife and son and is attached to the existing border fence. Nearby, bulldozers already have begun pulling down trees to make way for the new construction, and the shrine is expected to come down with the old border fence, as it cannot be separated.

Guerrero, the city official, said authorities are working gradually on notifications as the wall construction progresses — and residents like Juana Nava in Nido de las Aguilas say they have yet to receive word.

On the small plot at the end of Calle Cilantro where she lives with her eight children and three grandchildren, Nava has built a washroom and outhouse right against the wall, and in another spot she has created a shaded patio area with a hammock. Outside her fence of scrap wood, she has planted a garden of nopal cactus.

“I have papers, I have water, I have electricity, look at the post, I’m not lying to you,” said Nava, who earns money cleaning houses. If she has to move, “let them give me what I’ve invested,” she said.

The neighborhood, settled by squatters, for years has been known as a corridor for smugglers, and those who live by the fence say they regularly see people climbing into the United States. But apart from the sounds of U.S. Border Patrol vehicles, residents like Nava say this is a quiet spot.

Standing outside her house near cages of chirping parakeets, Esparza, 41, offered a visitor a glass of water and a seat in the shade as she spoke of her worries.

Since her husband died three years ago, she has lived here with her adolescent son, 21-year-old daughter, and three-year-old granddaughter and the stray dog named Africa they rescued from a nearby dump. Esparza has learned of television reports about the new wall, and fears what could happen.

“They’re just old boards, but it’s our home,” Esparza said of her one-room residence. “I don’t want them to come and destroy what we’ve built with so much sacrifice.”

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...712-story.html

Cinthia Soto Esparza and her three-year-old daughter Brittany walk down the path in their enclosed property that has the U.S. border fence as their northernmost wall in the Nido de las Aquilas section of Tijuana. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune)

I guess they built on US soil. They're illegal structures, tear them down.

obviously, having a building a few feet from the wall gives a platform from which to scale the wall. There must be a buffer zone, which both countries acknowledge!

Tear it DOWN. And we are NOT "giving" you jack!

Haul your junk off and move somewhere else.

Mexico has a LOT of land...go squat on some someplace else.

Exactly!!!

That's there problem, not ours.

Let Mexico pay to move them as they are the ones who allowed these people to break the law and build
up to and attached to the U.S. fencing

So sorry, the homes in the gated community of Terrazas de Mendoza will be losing there 180 degree view
of the Pacific ocean.

Why does the one house have a tennis court built over the border boundary?

Originally Posted by lorrie

So sorry, the homes in the gated community of Terrazas de Mendoza will be losing there 180 degree view
of the Pacific ocean.

Why does the one house have a tennis court built over the border boundary?

Because no one stopped them. Same as everything else that's wrong in our immigration and border system. No one stops them.