ACROSS THE LINES - Archive (2006-2020)

Published in the San Diego Union Tribune , January 29, 2010 As they do to people living elsewhere across the United States, the coming months present to those of us who call San Diego County home a once-in-a-decade opportunity to take an honest look at ourselves. I refer, of course, to the 2010 Census. From the time that Congress first mandated “the enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States” in 1790, Americans have understood that there is nothing more basic to our democracy than the notion that every individual counts. The decennial census gives us a chance to consider whether our democracy really works for all of us. But this will be a difficult year to obtain an accurate count all of the region’s residents. Because San Diego County is home to so many immigrant, refugee and cross-border households, it has been ranked by the U.S. Census Bureau as the 11th “hardest-to-count” county in the United States. Gaps of language and literacy are the most obvious obstacles to...

Published on San Diego News Network , August 10, 2009 Earlier this spring President Obama urged an enthusiastic crowd of university students in Istanbul, Turkey to “build new bridges instead of new walls” around the world. I’m guessing Mr. Obama avoided this rhetorical flourish during his visit this week to Mexico. After all, as he sat down in Guadalajara with Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, contractors for the Department of Homeland Security were putting the finishing touches on 670 miles of double barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. Right here in San Diego border walls now cut through the Tijuana Estuary , an internationally-recognized coastal preserve, and prohibit public access to Friendship Park , a historic venue where for decades residents of the two nations have gathered peaceably at the international boundary. And in eastern San Diego County, DHS contractors are blasting their way through the Otay Mountain Wilderness to build ...

Distributed to the Friends of Friendship Park , March, 2009 My new friend, who works for the Border Patrol, resists my use of the word “wall” to describe the vast system of barriers being erected along the length of the U.S.-Mexico border. He would prefer that I – and others who oppose current U.S. border policy – talk about the barriers by referring to them as “tactical infrastructure.” Here is a picture of Jill Holslin standing in front of the second barrier that cuts across several miles of the San Diego-Tijuana urban corridor. PLEASE NOTE: This is Not a Wall And here is a picture, taken from the top of the metal fence that marks the international boundary, of the second barrier that now spans the western-most 3.5 miles of the border. This barrier cuts through the Tijuana Estuary and Border Field State Park at a distance ranging from 150 feet to 800 feet north of the border: PLEASE NOTE: This is Not a Wall Finally, here is a line of vehicles and Border Patrol agents t...

Posted to Friends of Friendship Park , Monday, Feb 23, 2009 On Saturday I was almost arrested for committing assault with a tortilla. Or was it my communion cup that Customs and Border Protection agents perceived to be a threat to the national security of the United States? The setting was Friendship Park, a historic venue on the U.S.-Mexico border, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. For generations people from the two nations have met at this location to visit with friends and family through the border fence. As part of its commitment to build 670 miles of double and triple barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, the Department of Homeland Security is building a second wall across Friendship Park. On December 23, 2008, Customs and Border Protection declared the site a construction zone. On January 6, 2009 CBP released final design plans for the park and announced that these plans would allow for no public access to this unique site. We, who are aficionados of the park, were stunned ...

Published in The Christian Century , October 7, 2008 NOTE: This article was recognized by the Associated Church Press with its 2008 Award of Merit , the citation reading: “In this well-written article, the author uses the lens of his experience to focus on the larger issue of U.S.-Mexico border policy. A compelling and challenging look at a highly charged issue.” Among the least recognized yet most lasting legacies of the Bush administration's "war on terror" has been a dramatic transformation of the U.S.-Mexico border. This transformation is about to reach its symbolic and geographic culmination at Friendship Park, a plaza atop a seaside bluff south of San Diego. For generations residents of San Diego and Tijuana have gathered at Friendship Park to visit with family and friends through the border fence. In coming months the Department of Homeland Security will erect a secondary fence across the park, eliminating public access to this historic meeting place. Until then, I...

Published in the San Diego Union-Tribune , August 16, 2008 The Department of Homeland Security will soon erect a secondary fence across Friendship Park, eliminating public access to a historic place where for generations people from San Diego and Tijuana have gathered to visit through the border fence. The seeds of Friendship Park's destruction were planted by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Never mind that the 9/11 terrorists did not enter the United States illegally from Mexico. The psychic needs of an aggrieved nation matched nicely with the desire to limit undocumented Mexican immigration. Post-9/11, the idea that “securing the border” was a matter of national security became axiomatic for politicians of all ideological persuasions. The Bush administration institutionalized the axiom in 2003, when the newly created Department of Homeland Security took operational control of the Border Patrol, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (renamed Immigration and Customs E...

Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Barack Obama’s home church on the south side of Chicago, knows a thing or two about preaching. It’s clear the aptly-named Reverend Wright understands there is a place in the pulpit for righteous anger. A “jeremiad” is a spoken or written work lamenting the state of society and cautioning the powers that be to change their ways. The name is derived from the Biblical prophet Jeremiah, who foretold the collapse of the Kingdom of Judah for having broken covenant with God. Reverend Wright has come under attack for two jeremiads in particular. In a 2003 sermon at the Trinity United Church of Christ, Wright preached this: “The government gives them drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God bless America.’ No, no, no, not God bless America. God damn America, that’s in the Bible, for killing innocent Americans. God damn American for treating our citizens as less than human.” Critics – white critics, to be more...