CA: Border Patrol's stops are criticized - Agents expanding enforcement areas

As the Border Patrol's ranks have increased in the San Diego area, so have reports of immigration-related traffic stops well away from the border.

Since late last year, there have been at least four reports of motorists stopped by immigration officials and questioned in the interior of the county and beyond.

Those who favor intensive enforcement of immigration laws long have pushed the federal government to do more, but the patrols are reigniting debate over what criteria agents use when deciding to make a stop. People who are in the country legally have been stopped, prompting criticism from immigrant advocates who say such tactics lead to racial profiling and the unnecessary questioning of U.S. citizens and legal residents.

The Border Patrol has stepped up what it calls roving patrols, said agent Jerry Conlin, a spokesman for the San Diego sector.

The patrols are not new or part of any policy change, he said, but there are now more agents to perform them. “Because of additional manpower, we're able to apply our focused, layered enforcement approach,” Conlin said. This includes patrolling the routes that people who have crossed illegally use to move through San Diego County on their way to places throughout the United States.

Those who were stopped include a San Diego-born citizen who said she was pulled over by a marked Border Patrol vehicle Feb. 20 on southbound Interstate 5 in Oceanside.

“As soon as I got on the freeway, I noticed a car following me,” said Maricela Orozco, 26, a student and telephone operator who was headed home to Escondido late at night after visiting her boyfriend. “A short time afterward, I noticed the lights on.”

Orozco, who was driving a 1989 Honda Accord, said she pulled off the freeway. After she handed the agent her driver's license, “he asked me if I was born in Escondido.”

After what she described as an unpleasant exchange, Orozco was allowed to continue. She made a complaint to the agency by phone.

Pedro Rios of the American Friends Service Committee, a human rights group that works with immigrants, said the committee also received a complaint from a legal resident who reported being followed and stopped near City Heights in San Diego.

“It's a little unclear how these decisions are made to follow someone on the freeway,” Rios said. “They will stop them and ask them for documentation. What is the justification or criteria for following someone, as opposed to someone else?”

As part of a Bush administration plan to boost Border Patrol ranks to 18,000 by the end of last year, roughly 600 agents were hired between Oct. 1, 2007, and Sept. 30, 2008, for the San Diego sector, which covers San Diego County and parts of Riverside and Orange counties.

Conlin said that while the agency's focus is border security, “we have the statutory authority to enforce the laws anywhere in the United States.” This is where checkpoints and roving patrols come in, he said.

The agency says that for security reasons, it does not disclose its criteria for making a stop. Conlin said there must be reasonable suspicion of illegal immigration status or illegal activity.

“We are not pulling over a certain race or a certain person because they look a certain way,” he said. “There is a totality of the circumstances, of the situation.” He said the Border Patrol does not break out the number of arrests from roving patrols.

Other people pulled over, according to reports, have included a Mexican woman driving on state Route 94 in southeastern San Diego. She was in the country illegally, Rios said.

Many stops were also conducted one morning near San Clemente, according to a written statement by a 17-year-old Argentine girl. She was pulled over with her Guatemalan friend, 20, who was driving, as they headed to church the Sunday morning after Christmas.

The girl said she and her friend, both here illegally, were put in a van, which gradually filled with about 10 people as it followed an SUV stopping motorists and pedestrians in south Orange County. All were taken to the Border Patrol's San Clemente station, she said.

John C. Nelson, an Orange County immigration attorney representing the girl, who is in deportation proceedings, said his client reported that most of the vehicles stopped were older.

“And the other commonality is, obviously, that all the occupants looked Hispanic,” he said.

In a statement she filed with Nelson, the girl said she also saw a man who was driving a landscaping truck get pulled over. He was let go; his passenger was arrested and placed in the van.

Nelson said the girl and the others were stopped by an unmarked SUV and loaded into an unmarked van. Conlin said vehicles used for patrols are normally marked. However, he confirmed the agency made several arrests in the area that morning.

Immigrant advocates say the patrols represent a departure from the agency's local interior enforcement policies, which were changed after a series of sweeps by agents from the Temecula station in June 2004.

A mobile team of agents made more than 400 arrests in San Diego, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The team often questioned individuals in commercial and residential areas.

After pressure from lawmakers and the public, U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials criticized the action, saying it had not been authorized by headquarters, and the operations stopped.

A memorandum was issued defining the roles of the Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, with the latter taking responsibility for most interior enforcement.

In the years since, the Border Patrol also appeared to scale back identification checks on trolleys and other local public transportation, said Rios of the American Friends group.

The restrictions of a few years ago appear to have loosened in some stations in the San Diego sector, said Chris Bauder, president of Local 1613 of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents San Diego-area agents. But much depends on the station, he said, with no formal directive.

“No one is willing to put anything in writing,” Bauder said. “If there is fallout somewhere down the road, those same officials who said it's OK will back up and say it's not OK.”

The agency has faced criticism after allegations were made in January that agents in its Riverside office had arrest quotas; an internal investigation is under way. The quota issue has not come up in San Diego, Bauder said.

I guess ill say it. And yes, i personally know MANY Americans of hispanic descent who are 100% wanting the border closed. But there is a huge mind-set in the Hispanic community, and its political leaders. They do not like anything that possibly interferes with *Mexican* citizens coming here illegally.

The girl who had an “unpleasant exchange”, was undoubtedly the cause of the unpleasantness. She could have simply stated her citizenship and thanked him the dangerous job he does.
Instead, she threw in her lot with racial solidarity instead of being an American.
People of her mindset are to blame for the flood, not the Mexicans. She makes it all possible.

And icing on the cake? Its a much better than even bet that the Border Patrol man was hispanic. Most ive met have been. Ramos and Campeon knew that they were Americans, not Hispanics. Just my little opinion here.

I have occasion to drive between Brawley and Blythe, CA from time to time. There is a checkpoint on the road and I get asked where I'm going and "Am I an American citizen?"

Hasn't been a problem for me. I'm glad these guys are doing their job.....and , yes, I am Anglo.

I agree with you. I often hit those checkpoints too. I guess my long winded rant just boils down to this. You can only object if you are more loyal to race or open borders, than you are to your American nationality.

The people who whine about these stops are basically traitors. They are more loyal to foreign things, than things American.

“The agency has not emphasized interior patrols for several years.”

And the result....news items like this every day ALL over the country.

http://www.kptv.com/news/18812982/detail.html
51 Pounds Of Cocaine Seized In Traffic Stop (This is the 2nd bust like this in a week on I-5 in Oregon — ALL illegal aliens)

Thanks, AuntB.

There’s a lot of drugs coming up here from Mexico.
We need more interior enforcement, for sure.

Well, what we need is for the illegals to be sent home, pronto!
Won’t happen in Oregon, though. :o(

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