Arizona residents protest Border Patrol checkpoints

AMADO — Normally four or five Border Patrol agents staff the interior checkpoint on Arivaca Road, about 35 miles south of Tucson.

But as many as 20 agents flanked the highway Wednesday morning, awaiting the arrival of a group of demonstrators determined to close the interior checkpoint — one of several such protests that took place in southern Arizona on Wednesday.

Opponents want the checkpoints removed. Some say they are a nuisance and threaten privacy; others say they lead to racial profiling.

The protesters arrived at 10 a.m., about 75 strong, and successfully blocked the road for a while, pushing against the Border Patrol agents.

First one, then two, three, four cars heading east through the checkpoint came to a halt. But after prompting from two Pima County Sheriff's Department deputies, protesters moved off the road and traffic began to flow again.

Some drivers on the road, which connects the communities of Amado and Arivaca, honked their support. Other drivers shook their fists.

PROTEST AGAINST CHECKPOINT

The Arivaca Road checkpoint, established eight years ago, is the smallest of the 11 checkpoints in the Tucson Sector, Border Patrol representatives said.

There are dozens of similar interior checkpoints throughout the Southwest, as well as in northern states, up to 100 miles from the border. Drivers are stopped and asked if they are citizens each time they pass through.

Residents of Arivaca and the organization People Helping People in the Border Zone have monitored the checkpoint there and campaigned for its removal for the past two years.

Alicia Dinsmore, with People Helping People in the Border Zone, said 60 percent of businesses in Amado and Arivaca signed a document opposing the checkpoint. About a year and a half ago, a protest temporarily shut the checkpoint by blocking the road, she said.

On Wednesday, more than a dozen Customs and Border Protection vehicles lined the rural two-lane road. The Tucson Sector's chief patrol agent, Manuel Padilla Jr., said the show of force was planned "to protect the safety of the public and of the agents."

Border checkpoints are a critical part of monitoring illegal immigration, Padilla said. They are established along what he called "routes of egress" where traffic flows near the border.

"It's legal to run the checkpoints," Padilla said. "If someone has a disagreement with the law, there are channels to express that."

CBP does not release statistics for individual checkpoints, citing security concerns. Agents in the Tucson Sector, which stretches 262 miles from the New Mexico state line to Yuma County, made 7,799 apprehensions and seized more than 160,600 pounds of illegal narcotics from fiscal year 2010 through 2014 at the checkpoints, according to CBP data.

But the checkpoints aren't appreciated by many of the local residents.

"I used to wander all over the place with my dog," said Patty Miller, a 73-year-old Arivaca resident, "A lot of us were here before the checkpoint. That's what we live here for, the peace and quiet. Now it seems like a war zone."

Maggie Milinovitch said if the checkpoint had been in existence when she bought her land, she would have "crossed Arivaca off her list." People don't want to be around the increased presence of the Border Patrol, she said.

Arivaca resident Kristen Randall, 32, said she goes through the checkpoint at least five times a week for work.

Initially, she was relatively neutral on the issue, she said. That changed one day in December 2009 when she was returning home from Christmas shopping with her husband and son. Randall had made Christmas cards for the Border Patrol agents and rolled down the window to hand them out at the checkpoint.

Instead, she said, a dog began sniffing her car and it was taken to secondary inspection. "They tore the car apart," Randall said. When she got home, Randall said she discovered agents had opened wrapped Christmas presents in the trunk.

"It was a turning point," Randall said. "It is probably naive to think that our actions today are going to close the checkpoint. But we need to cause a tidal wave of awareness, so people might see that this going on right here in America."

"No more Christmas cards," she added.

About three and a half hours into the protest, the group of about 10 remaining residents began to move forward toward the checkpoint.

Sophie Smith, 29, an Arivaca resident, was at the front of the push.

"We went to get up peacefully and proceed to where we have been wanting to hold our hearing all day," she said, pointing to the heart of the checkpoint.

The protesters moved forward with arms linked, she said, when agents stopped them "and pushed us back across the line."

"It's a sign that we are being effective," Smith said. "Before, they tried to ignore us. But as you can see, peaceful citizens are a threat to them."

Padilla didn't see it that way.

"One of the main takeaways is we have to minimize the effects of the checkpoint on the community and continue to have dialogue," he said, noting that no one was arrested Wednesday. "We are aware BP operations have an impact on the community."