Tubac residents: Border Patrol post brings more danger to area

by Dennis Wagner - Jul. 16, 2009 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic .

TUBAC - U.S. Border Patrol agents in southern Arizona face surging criticism from Santa Cruz Valley residents who say a checkpoint on Interstate 19 wrecks business and endangers their neighborhoods.

Arizona's top border officials say the I-19 checkpoint and 34 permanent roadblocks away from entry ports throughout the Southwest provide a vital second chance to catch illegal immigrants and drugs.

On Wednesday, about 130 people showed up for a public forum at the Tubac Community Center, where they took turns assailing the I-19 inspection stop and denouncing U.S. immigration policies. They said federal agents should stop illegal immigration at the international line rather than create a southern Arizona danger zone by operating a checkpoint 26 miles from the border.
"If we were attacked by Mexico, the Marines wouldn't fall back to Green Valley and hold the line there," said Nan Walden of the Coalition for a Safe and Secure Border. "Our government has not dealt with the hard issues of immigration."

But John Fitzpatrick, division chief of operations for the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, said the I-19 checkpoint proved its effectiveness just in the past week, with agents arresting 300 suspects and seizing 1,500 pounds of drugs.

Fitzpatrick conceded that the U.S.-Mexican border is not secure, blaming a lack of resources. Because of that, he added, a secondary line of defense is not only critical but efficient: Interior checkpoints account for only 4 percent of the agency's budget but 35 percent of its drug seizures.

All this controversy swirls around a traffic stop that has been in place for much of the past decade adjacent to the historic community of Tubac, 26 miles north of the border at Nogales.

Each day, agents and drug-sniffing dogs check thousands of vehicles for undocumented immigrants, narcotics and other contraband.

For a decade, Border Patrol officials campaigned to make the "tactical roadblock" a full-scale inspection station. They were thwarted by then-Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., who opposed permanent roadblocks because smugglers simply move around them. Kolbe inserted language in Border Patrol funding bills requiring checkpoints to change locations at least once every two weeks. As a result, the southern Arizona roadblock shifted up or down I-19 a short distance several times each month.

The restrictive language expired after Kolbe left office in 2007, however, and the I-19 checkpoint has remained stationary since then.

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., now serving in the 8th Congressional District, has pushed for improvements to the I-19 checkpoint. She said that enhancements were promised months ago and that delays in upgrading the facility are "unacceptable."

She said she is awaiting an analysis of checkpoint effectiveness due this fall from the Government Accountability Office.

Meanwhile, southern Arizonans are "genuinely frustrated and angry with the federal government's inability to take control of the border," Giffords said.

At Wednesday's forum, residents from Rio Rico to Green Valley complained of "coyotes" dumping illegal immigrants in their yards, drug smugglers shooting it out along the Santa Cruz River and law-enforcement chases through the valley.

Their most telling evidence comes from the Border Patrol's own data: So far this fiscal year, agents have arrested 461 people at the roadblock but 4,600 in the areas around it.

"Those involved in illegal activity know the checkpoint is there," said Gary Brasher, border-coalition chairman, who discovered two wounded smugglers at his front door last year.

"So, they simply stage up to the south and then they flank it, traveling through our neighborhoods, businesses and schools. Our organization is extraordinarily supportive of the Border Patrol. We just disagree with this strategy."

Brasher, a Tubac real-estate agent, said potential buyers have backed out of more than $5 million in home purchases because of the checkpoint.

Gary Hembree, owner of Old Presidio Traders souvenir store, led a recent convoy of vehicles into the I-19 checkpoint, honking and showing protest signs. Although it is impossible to measure the checkpoint's economic impact during a recession, he said, "I know for a fact that it hasn't helped. This is absolutely the slowest summer I've had in 28 years. It's been a kind of nightmare for everybody."

Other Santa Cruz Valley residents see the checkpoint as a minor, and necessary, inconvenience. Patti O'Berry of Green Valley, whose son is a Border Patrol agent, said talk of damage to home values or tourism is "absolute hogwash."

"They can put the checkpoint at my front door, as far as I'm concerned," O'Berry said. "I'm a businesswoman. I haven't talked to one person who's ever been detracted from going to the Tubac area."

Sarah Bailey, a retired attorney and native of Tubac, said: "The Mexican illegals may not be educated, but they are not stupid. They do not go into people's yards, because that's what brings the Border Patrol car after them."

Bailey mentioned an incident in 1982, when an illegal immigrant burglarized her house, stole a rifle and used it to murder two neighbors. She said immigrants used to pour through her ranch by the hundreds each day, but she put a stop to that with watchdogs, sensor-activated lights, a shotgun and a sign picturing a "Hispanic-looking man" with a .357 pistol pointed at his temple.

"They get the message, and they don't come through," she said.

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