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Mexicans stand on the beach while looking through the U.S.-Mexico border fence into the United States on May 1, 2016 in Tijuana, Mexico.
Steel fencing with razor wire, sensors, and surveillance cameras line most of the 2,000-mile US-Mexico border. The goal is to keep undocumented immigrants from entering the US - an effort the Trump administration promises to ramp up.But in 1971, the US fundamentally changed a section of the barrier: The Nixon administration built Friendship Park, the only federally designated bi-national meeting place along the US southern border.
Until 1994, the park between San Diego and Tijuana did not include any fencing. Anyone could spend time there during the day, monitored by the US Border Patrol. But border security tightened over time, and today families can barely touch fingertips through Friendship Park's thick steel fence.
Friends of Friendship Park, a local community organization formed in 2006, is now attempting to work with the San Diego Border Patrol to allow unrestricted access to the park again.
"Every weekend dozens of families travel long distances to visit the park, and in almost every instance, they do so because they have no other recourse for seeing their loved ones," a reverend and the coalition's leader, John Fanestil, told Business Insider.
Take a look at the park's history below: