Posted on 06/22/2018 4:19:47 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Border Patrol Agents Shut Down Highways in Maine and New Hampshire With Checkpoints
By Matthew Haag
June 22, 2018
For 11 hours on Wednesday, drivers who wanted to travel through a remote stretch of northern Maine were asked a simple question: Where were you born?
Border Patrol agents closed off all southbound lanes of Interstate 95 north of Bangor, Me., stopping drivers, searching outside their cars with drug-sniffing dogs and refusing to let them pass until they disclosed their citizenship. At least one encounter was captured on cellphone video.
“Good afternoon, ma’am, U.S. Border Patrol immigration inspection,” an officer told two reporters with the Bangor Daily News who had heard about the checkpoint, about 80 miles from the Canadian border, and decided to drive to it and record their interaction. “What country are you a citizen of?”
The driver protested. “If you want to continue down the road, then yes, ma’am, we need to know what country you’re a citizen of,” the agent said.
Such immigration checkpoints on highways have been used by the Border Patrol for years, often along popular smuggling and drug-trafficking routes in the Southwest. But their frequency has increased under President Trump, federal officials have said. The one in Maine was set up several days after agents conducted a three-day checkpoint on a New Hampshire highway, at least the second checkpoint in that state so far this year.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
“What’s your favorite Color ?”
The very obscure Plureple. A mixture of Tangerine and Purple and Green.
Another northern border article.
https://nypost.com/2018/06/22/jogger-detained-for-weeks-after-crossing-us-canada-border/
two reporters with the Bangor Daily News who had heard about the checkpoint, about 80 miles from the Canadian border, and decided to drive to it and record their interaction.
Attaboys . . . “investigate” nothing too complicated now, y’hear? Like corruption in government.
Just went through a Border Patrol checkpoint yesterday. It is situated thirty miles from the border at a chokepoint that is better observed and supervised than anything closer. The Patrolmen were going through a car and had the tire off. The patroldogs or sensors had picked up something. The day before they discovered 10 kilos of heroin. Just another day at the office.
Reading comments here, I see that some are very naive. I lived there for 16 years. There are many little side roads once one gets off the highway. Those are the smuggling routes.
Like highway stops for drunk drivers, the innocent are inconvenienced so any guilty will be identified.
Thanks for shedding more light on this operation, Mogger. It certainly helps to have FReepers who are more familiar with the topic at hand. Much appreciated.
Some years ago we were checking out the site of the train station scene in “Oklahoma!” (Elgin, AZ, NW of Nogales).
Heading north, we took a two-lane blacktop road and ran into a Border Patrol road check station. The guy took one look at two gray-haired old fuds and waved us through. Told he we were glad to see them out there and got a big grin - probably the only one he gt that day.
You're welcome.
It was almost half way through my daily 113.5 miles daily commute.
For those of us who knew, we could get off at the previous exit, bypass it on NH route 3, which is right beside I-93, and hop back on at the next exit.
I never bothered as they were very efficient.
I was never delayed more than a minute.
They just asked if you were a US citizen. No "showing of papers" or ID check.
A few seconds and you were on your way.
They were basically looking for Canadian felons, or ones who had been arrested in the USA.
Bike week can get a little wild.
>I don't know that, but the spot on I-93 where the border patrol does its' annual stops is a lightly traveled area at that time.
It is also on the edge of a military aircraft low level training area.
I have encountered A10s there flying below me.
Now if border patrol and the USAF could coordinate operations, they could put on a really fun show.
Scenario: "Ok Mr. drug smuggler or illegal alien, we're going to let you go.
"All you have to do is make it past that guy".
A 10 gets a live fire training mission.
I live where a highvoltage transmission line crosses my property.
A few years ago; for a few years; every Friday afternoon a couple of A-10s would roar overhead just a few yards away from the power lines; following them.
I never did figure out what they were up to. Some kind of training I guess.
Years ago, I remember getting questioned like that at the Buffalo Greyhound depot.
In the last few years I’ve traveled between Quebec and New England several times...via I-89 and I-91 in Vermont.Each time,while traveling south,I’d see the white and green Border Protection vehicles as far as 30 miles from the border.I was never intercepted by them...perhaps because of my Massachusetts plates.
So what!!!... Answer Yes or No... It’s like having to stop at a toll booth, where you have no clue where the money goes.
Maybe they can actually make a case out of that, if the checkpoint you are referring to isn't in New Hampshire, or the federal agents file federal charges.
Under the NH Constitution judges have found that drug evidence found at Border Patrol checkpoints was illegally obtained, and cannot be used in state courts.
There is nothing wrong with checkpoints in appropriate locations. I've seen them working very effectively in California. But in New England if you want to catch illegal aliens you head for where they are. And that isn't along the road in northern New Hampshire.
Your information reminds me why my people left effete New England a long time ago.
The ruling by the NH state judge established that drug charges based on the immigration checkpoints were not prosecutable, since the evidence obtained was done so without an appropriate probable cause or warrant under the NH constitution. So the press release touting the interdiction of drugs at the checkpoints was just fake news. As of the latest checkpoints the court ruling, from May, mooted all of the drug arrests.
In fact the local PD who made the arrests was just wasting everyone's time and money. And the Border Patrol press release was more fake news. What is the point of announcing you made 17 arrests for drug violations when the next sentence should say "and all 17 arrests will be dismissed as soon as we show up in court."
Real law enforcement work generates results. Instead of standing around admiring the scenery I'd like to see those Border Patrol agents rounding up the illegal immigrant drug dealers, felons, and human traffickers in the urban areas of New England where they congregate.
Why don't you read the opinion and tell me what the judge got wrong?
...Real law enforcement work generates results. Instead of standing around admiring the scenery I’d like to see those Border Patrol agents rounding up the illegal immigrant drug dealers, felons, and human traffickers in the urban areas of New England where they congregate....
its all part of a multi level enforcement...so nh case of first impression throws out drug evidence because they didn’t get a warrant but they could have gotten a warrant with the hit by the trained dog..so next time get a telephonic warrant and the case is good to go...
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