A Border in Crisis: Panoramas
Line at willow camp near Jacumba, California October 1, 2023
View of both Imperial Beach, California, and Tijuana, Mexico from Tijuana River Valley Regional Park. Sept. 28, 2023. Sept. 28 1:47 PM
In my exploration of the U.S.-Mexican Border, which I began in late September, I started taking 360 degree panorama shots with my Samsung S9. At first, my idea was to use them as reference shots for my investigation of the border crisis. but it occurred to me that they might just have a value in their own right. I took my first panoramic landscape in the highlands of Tijuana River Valley Regional Park on Sept. 29. On my hike up the mesa to that panoramic view, I met a guy who had hiked up to an overlook of the river valley. He told me he had climbed up to an overlook of the river valley to be close to Jesus. “I come here because my son is sick,” he said. Farther up the rise, I met with a Border Patrol agent who was looking at his cell phone, standing near his dune buggies, wearing a ski mask. Behind him were three parked Border Patrol SUVs. From my angle, I couldn’t see if there was anyone in the vehicles. I waved from afar so as not to startle him, and I finally got his attention. I approached and we had a brief conversation. I asked him if it was permissible to hike up near the border fence. He said it wasn’t only possible, but people did it all the time, riding on horses, hiking. I asked if there were many people trying to cross. “It’s a slow day,” he said. I walked up to the secondary fence between the US and Tijuana, Mexico. There were gaps in this fence all over, but access to the no-man’s land beyond was not permitted, and there were No Trespassing signs everywhere. Off in the distance I could see the 10 meter-high primary fence following the steep topography west towards the Tijuana Beach. There were easier places to cross.
Las Americas Premium Outlets adjacent to border fence, San Ysidro. Sept. 29 12:20 PM
The next day, I drove again to San Ysidro with the objective of finding the migrant aid station I’d read about in the Sept. 26 edition of the San Diego Union-Tribune. My search for the migrant aid station “Whiskey 8” began almost comically at the Las Americas Premium Outlets in San Ysidro, which is located adjacent to the border fence. You can peer into Tijuana as you park your car or eat your corn dog. You can also observe the numerous border patrol vehicles patrolling down the road between the primary and secondary fences. Walking between the mall and the fence, I saw two young men, one with a camera aiming it at the other one who was standing in front of the border fence, using it and the dense sprawl of Tijuana beyond as a backdrop. This activity attracted the attention of a Border Patrol agent who slowed down to talk to the two guys. They talked for a minute, and then the border patrol agent drove off. I approached one of the guys who told me his name was Alexander Cobian, a San Diego native, and he was a video content creator and filmmaker. “Guapruns” was the name of his company.
American Friends Service Committee aid station at “Whiskey 8” at border fence in San Ysidro. Sept. 29, 3:22 PM
The dudes knew nothing about any aid station. But I eventually found it by driving west on Dairy Market Road from the mall until I hit the unpaved Monument Road, which was the intersection mentioned in the Union-Tribune. I followed it maybe 200 meters, where I found five canopy tents set up over tables, set up by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). At the tables, there were five tables set up with food, medical supplies, clothes, and even a table with a recharging station for cellular phones so migrants could contact their families. I talked with San Diego Program Director Adriana Jasso, who told me all about the AFSC’s ongoing response, and I talked a little with migrants from Guinea, West Africa, through the border fence. She explained to me that the migrants were in a sort of no-man’s land, between the primary and secondary fences. Looking south, you could see the vehicle traffic beyond the primary fence, on Highway 1, which linked downtown Tijuana with the Pacific beach before turning south towards Ensenada. I approached the fence and got into a conversation, in French, with a young man named Mohammad. His group was from Guinea. He told me that he had been at the camp for eight hours, and that he had travelled up to Mexico through Nicaragua. Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a border patrol vehicle, which prompted all of the migrants waiting on the tarps strung up on the fence — their only shelter — to gather around the Border Patrol agent, who exited the vehicle, and began to explain the procedure. (Chances were pretty good that most of them would be released into the US, once processed by the Border Patrol, but that could take some time.) I found myself making turkey and cheese sandwiches with Robert Vivar, who works for both the Deported Veterans Resource Center and the Deported Veterans Advocacy Project. Vivar had found himself deported to Mexico, a country in which he didn’t have any meaningful ties, for nine years. He was finally allowed to come back to the US after winning a court case against the state of California in 2021. He is also co-director of the Leave No One Behind Mural project, and one of the subjects depicted in the Playas de Tijuana Mural Project. I also talked to a volunteer named Parnia Vafaei, who recalled some unwanted visitors to the site on her first day volunteering. “These two guys came in with the Idaho license plate and they were like we're gonna shoot down illegals running through the wall,” she said. “First of all, how's anyone going to get through this? Second, go get a fucking job.”
Migrant Camp #177 near Boulevard/Jacumba, California on border. Oct, 1 2:43 PM
On Oct. 1, I drove over the Tecate Divide, in the Cuyamaca Mountains, from San Diego to find the migrant camps near Jacumba, California that I’d also read about in the Union-Tribune. It wasn’t hard to find the nonprofit group Border Kindness, which was spearheading relief efforts for the hundreds of migrants camped in three separate areas adjacent to the border who were living out in the open and forced to sleep on the ground while waiting to be processed by Border Patrol. Border Kindness had made an abandoned youth center their headquarters on Jacumba’s main drag. Here they were stockpiling supplies, and making sandwiches. Volunteers made runs to the camps driving in their personal vehicles, handing out food, water, baby products, medical supplies, and tarps. After interviewing the principle organizers of Border Kindness, I drove out to two of the sites with a retiree by the name of Sam Schultz in his Toyota Tacoma SRS. I distributed water to migrants at both of these camps from the back of Schultz’s truck while he distributed sandwiches. (While Border Patrol agents and National Guard were on hand at both camps, none of the were involved in distributing relief.) We distributed to women and children first, and there weren’t enough sandwiches to go around. I distributed more than a hundred bottles of water to migrants at the first camp, Willow Camp, and more than 200 at the second, which was simply known as #177. The immigrants appeared to be largely from Latin America and from the Far East. (More to come on this story.)
Las Playas de Tijuana. The beach at the border. Oct. 4 11:30 AM
I got into Las Playas late in the morning. The first thing I noticed was the heavy presence of Tijuana police and Mexican military. The second thing I noticed was the presence of earth moving equipment on the US side of the fence. Some of the fence near the tideline that I’d seen last year was now replaced by very temporary-looking fence. The fence that had been there previously had been removed. Much higher fence was coming to Las Playas; there would soon be two layers of fencing running east-west along the border that will be almost 10 meters high, more than twice as high than what is there now, increasing the militarization of the border. I had first come to Las Playas in 2016 to see the murals along the fence that artists had painted on the Mexico-facing side of the fence to protest its existence. All those murals will soon be removed along with the old fencing and Las Playas might soon resembled West Berlin during the Cold War or Israel/Palestine now. But maybe that will inspire, or incite, artists to create new art.
