Checkpoint expansion concerns nearby residents

Some Tubac area residents are protesting that a new Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 19 might intrude on private property just north of the village.

The Army Corps of Engineers has mailed some residents notices of its plans, seeking permission to survey their land.

Some residents say OK, but others say no.

Critics who live near the current so-called temporary checkpoint don’t think they work, contending they pose more problems than they solve.

The Santa Cruz Valley Citizens Council met Thursday with the No. 2 man in the Tucson Sector Border Patrol headquarters, John Fitzpatrick, about the checkpoint.

Local activist Nancy Bohman said citizens council members generally told him they strongly oppose the idea.

Sherry Sass, who owns property that might be condemned for use to expand a checkpoint, said generally the meeting was cordial.

Two months ago, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and Tucson sector chief Robert Gilbert, reached an agreement that would scale back plans for a new, larger checkpoint on I-19.

The one the Corps of Engineers wants to survey for now would be a temporary one, larger and more sophisticated that the one at Agua Linda exit, No. 42.

Eventually, the Border Patrol would like a larger permanent one.

All the other Border Patrol sectors at the southern border have at least one permanent checkpoint.

Opponents at the meeting argued that checkpoints don’t work, illegal immigrants and smugglers can walk around them and into nearby neighborhoods.

Bohman said the checkpoints should be at the border, adding “ The residents “don’t want it somewhere else.”

The extra land the government seeks would to provide space for a third north-bound lane, making it easier to check the flow of vehicles and making space for better inspections.

The Tucson sector covers most of Arizona’s southern border.

It’s the agency’s busiest.

In Congressional testimony last year sector chief Gilbert said in Fiscal Year 2007 agents “arrested 378,239 illegal aliens, 43 percent of the national apprehension total.”

jlamb@gvnews.com | 547-9749