Giffords favors 'stationary checkpoint'

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has called for a “stationary” Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 19, one that would have some of the high-tech equipment the current, tactical station lacks.

But despite her statement Friday, don’t expect the controversy over permanent versus temporary checkpoint to subside.

Giffords favors a smaller operation than the large checkpoint at Laredo, Texas, that had been a model for the proposed permanent one on Interstate 19.

And she said Tucson Sector Border Patrol Chief Robert Graves also now favors a smaller operation than was originally planned.

Border Patrol checkpoints near the Canadian and Mexican borders are designed to interdict drugs and other contraband and catch illegal entrants.

The issue is a divisive one in the Santa Cruz Valley.

Giffords formed a community workgroup in April to study the issue and make recommendations to her.

One of its committees favored a temporary checkpoint like the existing one at kilometer 42 south of Arivaca Junction and another committee called for a permanent one.

Giffords said Chief Graves plans to change the location of the existing temporary checkpoint about half a kilometer to the south and the Border Patrol “has also committed to scale back its plans for a permanent checkpoint by focusing on a design that is much smaller than the facility in Laredo, Texas.”

Ron Barber, her district director, said in a short interview that the interim checkpoint would have three lanes, a temporary modular building, a canopy over the highway, some improved communications equipment but no large VACIS—Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System, a kind of X-ray machine to look inside the 18-wheel cargo trucks.

Currently, cargo trucks that are stopped at the existing checkpoint at Agua Linda, exit No. 42, are sent back to larger facilities at the border for further inspection.

That would still happen at the proposed stationary checkpoint said Barber.

Originally the Border Patrol talked about locating its new checkpoint at kilometer 50, just north of Arivaca Junction.

The new proposed location is south of that, and consequently wouldn’t be able to screen traffic coming north on the Arivaca road.

The Border Patrol and permanent check point proponents say there’d be holding rooms for persons detained there, space for sophisticated, high-speed communications and surveillance equipment and permanent rest rooms.

Currently, Border Patrol agents and people detained at the temporary checkpoint share portable toilets.

Permanent checkpoint opponents said it would lack the element of surprise that a roving one has, that criminals trying to avoid it would infiltrate nearby neighborhoods and they can simply walk around it to avoid capture.

They also say the Border Patrol should close the border “at the border” and not 30 miles north of it.

The Border Patrol said it knows that people would try to walk around permanent stations and consequently watches for them, and that if it places all its resources at the border, it would concede the rest of the country to those smugglers and illegals who make it across.

The Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector, which includes most of Southern Arizona, is the only one of the country’s 20 sectors without permanent checkpoints.

Permanent checkpoint proponents say that could be the reason this area is the busiest along the border for drug smuggling and illegal entrant arrests.

Giffords said “48 percent of drug traffic and 44 percent of the illegal human traffic that crosses the U.S.-Mexico border enters along southern Arizona’s Tucson sector.

“Approximately 1,049 illegal immigrants and 2,749 pounds of narcotics are smuggled through this region every day.”

Besides the Interstate 19 checkpoint, the Border Patrol proposes building two others, one near Ajo and another near Huachuca City in Cochise County.

jlamb@gvnews.com | 547-9749