Posted on 04/25/2006 6:54:00 PM PDT by SandRat
BISBEE — Motorists along three of Cochise County’s major north-south throughways may have noticed the recent disappearance of some familiar landmarks — the Border Patrol checkpoints that had long been fixtures on highways 80, 90 and 191.
A Border Patrol spokesman at the agency’s Tucson Sector headquarters said Monday that because the management of checkpoints is an operational issue, he could not comment on why or precisely when the permanent revision points in Cochise County had been dismantled.
A spokeswoman at Congressman Jim Kolbe’s office in Washington, however, said that any removal would be appropriate given a law prohibiting long-term checkpoints in the area.
According to a provision inserted into Border Patrol appropriations bills by Kolbe, the Tucson Sector must relocate checkpoints every seven days and may not return to the previous location until at least another week.
The Tucson Sector — which includes all of Cochise County — is the only Border Patrol sector to have such a restriction.
“We already have a permanent checkpoint — the U.S.-Mexico border,” Kolbe said in a prepared statement released by his office.
“Using permanent checkpoints is not as effective — those sneaking across the border will know where they are located, and simply go around them.”
Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever said he had noticed that the checkpoints had been taken down, but had not yet had a chance to talk with the Border Patrol about it. But he said that since the permanent checkpoints had been removed, he had seen more randomly deployed revision points on county highways — a strategy he says ultimately makes his job easier.
“When [stationary] checkpoints go up, our work at the Sheriff’s Department actually increases because rather than driving down the highways, these guys start driving through people’s backyards and across country,” he said.
“And as a result, we get more trespassing complaints.”
In the past, Border Patrol leaders have argued that constantly putting up and taking down checkpoints wastes time and resources, and have advocated an approach that combines the use of stationary and mobile revision points.
In order to circumvent the restriction on permanent checkpoints in southern Arizona, the agency had employed a strategy of shutting down stationary checkpoints briefly and then reopening in the same spot.
In 2005, Kolbe asked the federal Government Accountability Office to investigate the practice. But while the GAO report did find the Tucson Sector was sidestepping the law, it also said that the effectiveness of checkpoints in the area had fallen by 77 percent since the time-limit rule went into effect.
Kolbe, however, said parts of the report could also be interpreted to show the superiority of mobile revision points.
Royce Conner, a Tucson resident who commutes daily to a job in Bisbee via routes 80 and 90, said he noticed the checkpoint on Route 80 near Tombstone was gone about two weeks ago. He thought the stop north of Sierra Vista on Route 90 had disappeared more recently.
And while traffic delays have been used in the argument against checkpoints, Conner said that he generally lost no more than a minute of time at the Tombstone stop and perhaps slightly more at Sierra Vista.
“They would just ask me my nationality and wave me through,” he said.
“They were always polite and courteous.”
But another observation by Conner suggested a potential flaw in the on-again, off-again, approach used at the permanent checkpoints: predictability.
“You always knew when they weren’t going to be there because you knew the number of days they had been there already,” he said.
I give you Vietnamese - GI Vietnamese and You give me Spanish, Castillian Spanish at that.
LOL!
(disclaimer: the following has been edited and censored, for fear of being sent to FR Purgatory for use of bad language...%$##& ^#$#$*!!@###%%)(&&#^!!!!)
Let me turn my collar around..... there, ---- your penance my child is to keep FReeping, to post replies with kindness to all fellow FReepers (except Trolls of course ZOT 'EM!), and recruit at least 1 new FReeper before the next FREEPATHON.
I understood it.
FOFLOL!
"In california they move them from time to time"
Which ones?
San Onofre and Temecula are perminant instalations although in the last year they aren't open over 20%of the time but are packed with border patrol cars.
Running the check point must be too much work so they are all inside drinking coffee and eating donuts donated by illegals.
We'll I am 3 of the groups and I support the wall, so it must not be far off!
I will go, and FReep some more.
I will say my 10 Hail Kitties and 5 Our Founders now.
I'm at least three of the bricks myself, lol.
Check out Commie cartoon in post 4.
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