Protesters march on Arivaca Road Border Patrol checkpoint


Karl W. Hoffman / Special to the Green Valley News
Checkpoint protest

More than 100 protesters marched Sunday to the Arivaca Border Patrol checkpoint to call for its closure.

Posted: Sunday, December 8, 2013 10:00 pm | Updated: 11:01 am, Mon Dec 9, 2013.
By Dan Shearer dshearer@gvnews.com

More than 100 people converged on the Arivaca Road Border Patrol checkpoint on Sunday from two directions but with one message: Close it down.

The protest included residents of Arivaca and members of several humanitarian groups, including the Green Valley Samaritans, No More Deaths and Derechos Humanos.

The rally was launched from two sites. One group met in the parking lot of The Cow Palace in Amado and marched less than a mile west to the checkpoint; the other met at the Arivaca Community Center and drove to within a mile of the checkpoint and finished the march east on foot.

When they met, they discovered the checkpoint closed down but about 10 agents on duty.

The protesters delivered a petition to agents signed by 230 residents of Arivaca and another with about 400 signatures of people who live outside the area. The thrust of the petitions called into question the constitutionality of the checkpoint, which has been a permanent fixture for about six years, and asks that it be removed. The petition said the checkpoint has hurt the local economy and led to an increase in deaths of illegal immigrants in the area, though it didn’t say how. The protesters also sang and heard speakers in the hour-long rally held on the side of the road.

A Border Patrol spokeswoman at the protest declined to release figures on seizures and other activity specific to the Arivaca checkpoint, but said all checkpoints in the Tucson Sector yielded a combined 17,000 pounds of marijuana in 2012. Several people at the rally questioned the effectiveness of the checkpoint and said they have sought seizure numbers for Arivaca and have been turned down.

Several Arivaca business owners at the rally said the checkpoint has hurt tourism in the area, a concern also raised by Tubac merchants and Realtors south of the Interstate 19 checkpoint.

The Border Patrol operates 71 temporary or permanent checkpoints along the southern U.S. border. A 2009 U.S. General Accountability Office report said checkpoints are effective in helping the Border Patrol carry out its mission but noted several deficiencies and inefficiencies, including unreliable data collection methods that “resulted in the overstatement of checkpoint performance results in fiscal year 2007 and 2008.”

LIVING IT EVERY DAY

“We’re losing our constitutional rights,” said Christi Trent, who has lived in Arivaca for three years.

Trent said that as an Anglo she has had no problems clearing the checkpoint, but said she is dismayed that the United States is willing to use what she calls intimidation and fear to address the complex issues of immigration and illegal drug trafficking.

“Is it doing what it said it was going to do?” she asked of the checkpoint. “We don’t get any statistics from Border Patrol on it.”

Manuel Leyva, a Latino who has lived about a quarter-mile east of the checkpoint for 13 years, says he is routinely hassled by agents as he goes on morning walks. He wants to see the checkpoint taken out.

“I’m out walking and the agents always ask me, ‘What are you doing? Why are you walking alone?’” he said in Spanish. “They always bother me and there is no reason.”

“I want it gone,” he said of the checkpoint.

Allen Wallen, who grew up in Arivaca and has children at Sopori School, said the “aggressive presence” of the Border Patrol isn’t good for kids to see.

“If you go along like sheep, they won’t harass you,” he said of the checkpoint. “As long as you’re willing to give up enough rights, everything is OK.”

The 1976 U.S. v. Martinez-Fuerte U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for Border Patrol checkpoints and declared they are not a violation of Fourth Amendment rights prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures. Agents must have probable cause to search a vehicle, however.

Ginny and Buddy Valenzuela, Arivaca residents and vocal supporters of the Border Patrol, said they don’t want to see the checkpoint go.

“I was very relieved at knowing they were here” when she moved there six years ago, Ginny said. “They keep the drugs and riff-raff out of here.”

She also said agents driving Arivaca Road keep the speeding down.

Buddy, 66, has lived in Arivaca most of his life. Although the community is under the jurisdiction of the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, he said Border Patrol agents are often the first-responders to emergencies in the area.

http://www.gvnews.com/news/local/pro...a4bcf887a.html