Thread: Dicks questions checkpoints as protests continue

More protests of U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints are planned on the Olympic Peninsula while U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks waits for Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to answer his Feb. 9 letter questioning the checkpoints.

The latest protest was staged on Valentine's Day near Fat Smitty's on U.S. Highway 101, where more than 30 people from Port Townsend, Port Angeles, Sequim and Quilcene stood with signs and proclaimed their "love for civil liberties."

Two people, Davi Parrish and Cliff Fors of Port Angeles, offered what they called a "counterprotest" and held a large sign urging the patrol to conduct more checkpoints. Parrish and Fors said they had engaged in a conversation with the protesters holding the signs opposed to the checkpoints, but they disagreed with them.

Fors said he had been on the bus on which the Border Patrol had checked people. "I was treated extremely professionally," he said, adding that he has Hispanic relatives who think other Hispanics who are concerned about the checkpoints "blow it out of proportion."

Down the protest line from Parrish and Fors stood Aurliano Servin and David Gonzalez, also of Port Angeles.

Servin held a green sign in the shape of a tree that read, "The Evergreen State, not the police state." Servin said he had been stopped by the Border Patrol and had seen the patrol drive by worksites repeatedly.

"They say they are doing routine stops, but they are picking only people who are brown," said Gonzalez. "The way they come at you, it's verbal abuse," Gonzalez said, adding he expected the patrol to take photographs of protesters.

The Stop the Checkpoints Committee, which sponsored the event, says the checkpoints are violating the civil rights of citizens of the United States who are nowhere near the border.

"Our job is to support civil rights efforts," said Henry Werch, who passed out cards created by the Seattle chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union that spell out the rights of citizens and offer phone numbers for attorneys who provide advice on immigration.

Protest organizer Eric Chester said another event is planned for March 7 in Sequim as part of International Women's Day.

Chester said he was heartened that there was a 20-1 ratio of people who are critical of the Border Patrol.

While more protests and continued resistance to the checkpoints are planned, George Behan of Dicks' office said Tuesday morning that Dicks had not yet received a response from Napolitano.

In his letter, Dicks said he had serious questions about how the agency is applying its mission on the Olympic Peninsula.

"The national security value of this checkpoint strategy on public roads, inconveniencing hundreds of [legitimate U.S. citizen] motorists during each instance, is unclear to me and my constituents," Dicks wrote.

Dicks said he met in October with the chief of the Border Patrol, but that since then, "CBP agents have adopted an even more aggressive strategy of performing ad hoc traffic stops, making individual arrests.

"The most recent account is even more disturbing: Border Patrol agents boarding public and private buses operating in regular domestic service around the Olympic Peninsula, lacking any apparent probable cause, primarily questioning riders about their citizenship," Dicks wrote.

Asked for a comment on Dicks' letter, Border Patrol spokesman Doy Noblitt, of the patrol's Blaine Sector headquarters, wrote that the patrol is concentrating "our limited resources on operations designed to accomplish the primary goal of preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States."

"Border Patrol operations being conducted on the Olympic Peninsula focus on public transportation conveyances that travel egress routes with destinations away from the border areas. We do no focus on local transportation services," Noblitt wrote.

While Dicks is waiting for Napolitano to respond to his concerns, the Jefferson County Republican Central Committee was hosting the Border Patrol at its meeting Tuesday night at the Tri-Area Community Center.

http://www.ptleader.com/main.asp?Sectio ... M=83523.84

Re:U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks
(Whadda DICK!)

They complain when local police are doing the job that should be the job of the federal government then the feds do the job and they still complain ...geeee wonder what their motive or agenda is......No law enforment you think

Enforce, Deport and Attrition will solve most of our problems.

While anyone can go anywhere in this country whether they are legal or illegal, this fool wants to limit police activity? I have been through many checkpoints where police are looking for drunks on the roads. Rather than complaining about my inconvenience, I thank them for saving me from a blind-drunk driver slamming into my car. And they catch many who also have warrants out for their arrest.
It makes me insane that inconvenience is much more important than protecting this country and its citizens.

Was I the only one that laughed at the title? How true it is!