Couple Exchanges Vows Over Mexico-US Border

A Mexican bride and her American groom took advantage of the 'Door of Hope'
By Josh Rosenblatt,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 20, 2017 5:45 PM CST
Couple Exchanges Vows Over Mexico-US Border
   (Howard Lipin//The San Diego Union-Tribune via AP)

For just the sixth time in nearly five years, a gate known as the "Door of Hope" was opened along the border between Mexico and the United States, allowing family members from the two countries to temporarily reunite. Only this time those doors were open long enough for a wedding to take place, the Washington Post reports. On Saturday, Evelia Reyes, a Mexican native, and her American boyfriend, Brian Houston, met at the gate in Friendship Park on the border between San Diego and Tijuana—Reyes in a bridal gown, Houston in a grey suit—and exchanged vows in the company of a judge from Tijuana and several border agents. The ceremony only lasted three minutes because that's how long the Door of Hope is allowed to stay open.

Reyes and Houston were one of just 12 groups picked to reunite Saturday by Border Angels, a group that convinced Border Control to open the gate for the first time in 2013 to celebrate Children's Day in Mexico. Since then the door has been opened five times. Border Angels picks participants on a first-come/first-serve basis, and applicants have to undergo a federal background check. When the door isn't open, people from both sides of the border can meet in Friendship Park between 10am and 2pm on Saturdays and Sundays to see each other through steel-mesh fencing. Reyes and Houston are working with an immigration lawyer to get Reyes a green card, a process, they say, that could take more than a year. (More Mexico stories.)

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