Arizona citizens monitoring illegal immigration checkpoints
Border Patrol checkpoints aren't always near the border. Some aren't even on roads that go to the border. Take Arivaca Road; it's an East-West route 25 miles north of the Mexican border in Southern Arizona.
Whether it's government security or government intrusion; either way, everyone stops at the checkpoint.
A Border Patrol checkpoint has been operating there around the clock for seven years. Some residents of the town of Arivaca say agents at the checkpoint go well beyond their legal authority; searching vehicles and questioning citizens without cause. So they've begun their own monitoring — to inspect the process.
Traffic cones and speed bumps force me to a stop at the Arivaca Road checkpoint. I roll down my window and a Border Patrol agent eyes the interior of my car while he asks me a couple of questions, like how I'm doing and whether or not I'm a U.S. citizen.
Just beyond the checkpoint, four people in bright yellow safety vests are standing by the side of the road, watching everything that happens here.
They tally driver descriptions, license plates and how long each vehicle is stopped. They videotape some stops. Peter Ragan, who lives in the small town of Arivaca, has to stop at the checkpoint every time he comes or goes. He says he's experienced more than inconvenience, and has been illegally searched.
"My vehicle [has] been searched twice," Ragan says. "Once claiming that a drug sniffing dog alerted on it, and once because ... after answering a question about citizenship would not answer personal questions about my vehicle."
Carlota Wray is a naturalized U.S. citizen. She's originally from Mexico, but she's lived in Arivaca for three decades. She carries her passport when she drives through because, she says, agents use racial profiling.
Fifteen U.S. citizens have filed a formal complaint with the Department of Homeland Security. They say they've been searched after dogs alerted to nonexistent drugs, and detained for long, unjustified times.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Border Patrol only has the right to determine someone's immigration status at these checkpoints unless agents have good reason to believe a crime has been committed.
The Border Patrol says checkpoints are valuable enforcement tools. In an email, a spokesman wrote that over the last three years, agents at checkpoints have made more than 6,000 apprehensions and seized more than 135,000 pounds of narcotics.
Those figures, however, are for all 11 checkpoints in Arizona. The agency doesn't release figures for individual checkpoints. That's the other reason Arivaca monitors began collecting their own data. Ragan thinks he knows what the numbers will show.
"Statistics would show, if they were kept properly, that I think that very few immigration apprehensions happen here," he says. "Not much drug interdiction happens here."
The monitors want the Arivaca checkpoint closed. They say it's just one more sign of the permanent militarization of the border region. The Border Patrol says it has no plans to alter operations here.
http://www.npr.org/2014/03/29/296297733/in-arizona-citizens-keep-close-eye-on-immigration-checkpoint
http://www.lookintoit.org/American-Border-Debacle.html
Border agent actually acknowledges the constitution at illegal checkpoint:
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/01/border-agent-actually-acknowledges.html
Border patrol "tactical" checkpoints a violation of Americans rights:
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/01/border-patrol-tactical-checkpoints.html
Illegal 'Eating While Driving' police checkpoints begin:
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/02/illegal-eating-while-driving-police.html
Public outraged over illegal DNA checkpoints:
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/01/public-outraged-over-illegal-dna.html
New militarized police training introduces “shoot first” policy for police:
New Mexico: With two major law enforcement agencies under criticism for their uses of force – including the Albuquerque Police Department under DOJ investigation – the state board responsible for police training has hired a new “paramilitary” director who dumped responsible use of force training in favor of more “shoot first” scenarios. A New Mexico State Police officer made national news in October when he opened fire on a van full of children after the mother drove away from a rural traffic stop.
Governor Martinez supported the firing of the officer saying:
‘Noting that her husband was a police officer for more than 30 years, the governor said, “You don’t use deadly force against someone who is not threatening you with deadly force..” ’
But that’s not the message police are getting.
Just two months after the shooting – the Albuquerque Police Department is under DOJ scrutiny for the shooting of 22 residents, 13 fatal, in just two years – the Santa Fe New Mexican and Albuquerque Journal report that the state’s law enforcement academy board hired a “paramilitary” director, eliminated public oversight or comment on training and cut police training on community policing and reducing fear, changed physical standards to limit the ability of women to quality and now implemented a “Shoot First” training program so bad at least one instructor refused to teach it.
In September, the state’s eight-member Law Enforcement Academy Board, which is appointed by the governor and chaired by the attorney general, voted unanimously to change the New Mexico Administrative Code to give complete control over the curriculum to Jones.
Greg Williams, an Albuquerque attorney and president-elect of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government, said before the board voted on the change, it had a process that included public involvement.
“What they did was to change the process so that the public could not be involved,” he said…
Phillip Gallegos, a former academy instructor, called the rule change a “dangerous precedent.”
“Now you have one person that is making the selection, and who is to say that person knows what a curriculum is supposed to be like,” Gallegos said.
Gallegos said the academy fired him in July for insubordination after he refused to teach new cadets some of the firearms training Jones wanted to implement. – Santa Fe New Mexican, Feb. 16, 2014
Governor Martinez appoints all six public members of the law enforcement board overseeing police training and they should have never let that happen. The New Mexican reports that they changed the rules to prevent public input on police training, then stood by when the new director implemented this “Shoot First” program.
The Law Enforcement Academy Board, however, is backing Jones. At a meeting Monday, board Vice Chairman Nate Korn lauded his expertise and what he has done to train officers.
The largest cuts in the old curriculum come from a block called “Patrol Procedures and Operations,” from which almost 60 hours were eliminated, including classes called “Role of Patrol in Community Policing,” “Patrol Activities and Incidents,” “Crimes in Progress” and “Crime Prevention and Fear Reduction.” – Albuquerque Journal.
https://progressnownm.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/new-militarized-police-training-introduces-shoot-first-policy-for-new-mexico-cops/