Border Coalition members cool to ‘stationary checkpoint’

The Coalition for a Safe and Secure Border met Tuesday in Green Valley to discuss Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ statement that she favors a “stationary” checkpoint, a decision that some feel is a cop-out.

“The hope was always that Giffords would take a stand,” said Randy Mayer, coalition member against a permanent checkpoint and pastor of the Good Shepherd United Church of Christ in Sahuarita.

“She did -- she took a stand on the fence,” said Eloise Fredrickson of Green Valley’s BorderLinks chapter, an organization that informs the public on border issues.

The coalition fears that a stationary checkpoint will have the same unwanted effect on the community as a permanent checkpoint, pushing immigrants farther into the desert and crime deeper into the community, said Mayer. They also argued against the location of the new proposed stationary checkpoint, which would be slightly closer to Tubac than the existing station is.

Mayer said that the implementation of the checkpoint is no solution to the root of the problem. “As far as I’m concerned, if you’re for a checkpoint, you’re against comprehensive immigration reform.”

He also criticized Gifford’s utilization of the study conducted by the Community Workgroup on Southern Arizona Checkpoints, a four-month project presented to Giffords last month in Sahuarita. “She put it into her proposal and did what she was asked to do,” but questions whether the representative really took the study into account.

But in a statement, the coalition applauded Giffords’ plan to seek independent evaluation by the Government Accountability Office to assess “the effectiveness of checkpoints in the Tucson sector and other parts of the country.”

The coalition said it “strongly supports such independent evaluation” and urged Giffords and the entire Arizona congressional delegation to demand that the Border Patrol fully implement a 2005 GAO recommendation asking it to collect and publicize more comprehensive data.

The Border Patrol originally proposed a permanent checkpoint at kilometer post No. 50, north of Arivaca Road’s intersection with- I-19 .

A checkpoint south of that couldn’t screen traffic originating on Arivaca Road.

In a statement, coalition member Nan Walden said this was counter to what the agency had previously said.

She said: “The Border Patrol seems to change its rationale from week to week.

“This does not reassure us that it has an overall coordinated strategy to protect our border and our neighborhoods.”

The Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector is the only one of 20 in the country that doesn’t have any permanent checkpoints.

jrichardson@gvnews.com