US pauses plans for new border walls at oceanfront park

By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press

SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration says it is pausing plans for a double border wall in San Diego that critics say would effectively destroy a 51-year-old oceanfront park that symbolizes friendship between the United States and Mexico. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Chris Magnus says he wants to hear community concerns before settling on a wall design for Friendship Park, which then-first lady Pat Nixon inaugurated 1971. For decades, park visitors could easily converse between San Diego and Tijuana but access gradually diminished from the U.S. over the last 15 years and stopped entirely for more than two years.