Border Patrol Demands Travel Documents Inside The Country

whereAeYourPapers

This morning, I came across the following disturbing letter to the editor posted to Freedom’s Phoenix that I thought I’d share with you.

Many folks claim that internal Border Patrol checkpoints are no big deal because they only involve a brief citizenship query. While I have repeatedly debunked this claim, the letter below does a great job in showing how quickly questioning at such checkpoints can escalate well outside the scope of brief immigration queries.

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Local Border Patrol Union Declares Its Agents Above The Law

bpAccident

Several months ago, I came across an entry on the local Border Patrol union’s website where the union was complaining about the use of DPS photo radar cameras in Arizona. Since Arizona photo radar is a topic of interest to me, I read on and learned that union leadership was claiming photo radar was interfering with field agents doing their job.

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ACLU Successfully Assists Border Patrol Agents Retaliated Against For Whistleblowing

rvStopIn followup to my May 2008 blog entry regarding two Border Patrol agents retaliated against for whistle blowing, the agents have been fully reinstated by the agency.

Problems for the agents started in late 2006 when the ex-wife of one of the agents, along with his minor children, were stopped by a Border Patrol roving patrol near Rodeo, New Mexico. During the stop, agents searched the vehicle and found marijuana. Agent Curbelo’s ex-wife was arrested and his children detained.

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Yuma Checkpoint Protest Scheduled For This Weekend

freedomRide2009(Originally scheduled for Memorial day, the date has been changed to this Saturday)

According to an announcement recently appearing on Freedom’s Phoenix (and reprinted below), a freedom drive is being organized by several folks in Southern Arizona. The drive will take place this Saturday, two days before Memorial Day.

According to the announcement, participants in the drive will proceed to the suspicionless internal Border Patrol checkpoint seventy miles East of Yuma after memorial services are conducted at a nearby cemetery. At the checkpoint, individuals will protest the steady erosion of 4th amendment protections inherent in suspicionless checkpoint operations along with the recent beating of Steven Anderson by Border Patrol agents and Arizona DPS officers at that same checkpoint.

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Tubac Residents Protest I-19 Checkpoint

sr86cpIn 2007, I posted a series of blog entries regarding a proposed permanent Border Patrol checkpoint along I-19 near Tubac, Arizona that Homeland Security was attempting to ram down the throats of Southern Arizona residents. The checkpoint plans were met with a fair amount of resistance from local individuals, communities, business owners and politicians. In response, the Border Patrol temporarily tabled the plans and settled for a temporary or tactical checkpoint in its stead.

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Arizona DPS Delivers ‘Service’ With A Smile

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(The enforcer with the sadistic grin on his face while tasering a non-violent individual is Arizona DPS Officer J. Mitchell)

Steven Anderson, the individual recently brutalized at an internal suspicionless immigration checkpoint by Border Patrol agents and Arizona DPS officers, has just posted video of part of the incident. Initially, Anderson’s camera was seized by the DPS but it looks like his attorney has successfully negotiated its return along with some of the video footage from Border Patrol surveillance cameras.

(Correction: it appears that the DPS released a DVD with video footage to Anderson and his attorney but the cameras seized have not yet been returned)

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