"Internal travel restrictions"? Already here -- try driving in the SW

[Newsjock]

We're busy railing over this thread on the vote over intelligence changes. And Rep. Ron Paul denounces "internal screening points where identification will be demanded."  "Domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free nations," he says.

Those restrictions are already here across much of the Southwest, in the name of protecting our border with Mexico. And it's very much the "papers, please" kind of intrusive check that makes me seethe with anger every time I think about it.

Since I don't live that far south, my first encounter with this Border Patrol activity was last summer, headed northbound on I-25 about an hour north of El Paso. I was a man traveling solo in a distant vehicle, and I attracted their attention at the mandatory checkpoint set up to block the freeway. They wanted to know where I was from, where I was born, where I had been, where I was going, how long I had been traveling, and my purpose for traveling. All the while, I was staring at a giant billboard helpfully erected by the side of the road proclaiming so-many thousand pounds of illegal drugs had been seized so far that year at this checkpoint. Fortunately, I didn't get the full strip-search or full take-apart-the-car search, but I certainly was angry and pissed off for much of the rest of my trip -- that I had to justify my domestic travels to a government official.

Then, when I toured southern Arizona back in October, I got even more up-close experience with these checkpoints. On road after road after road, the Border Patrol had set up "mobile" checkpoints (because, apparently, the permanent ones are still prohibited by Arizona law). I waited in a single-file line for 10 minutes to have another uniformed, armed Border Patrol official ask about my place of birth and citizenship. I drove past several mobile watchtowers -- three-story observation points that had been placed along the highway for the patrol to watch. All across an area roughly south of a line connecting I-8, Tucson, and I-10, the Border Patrol was out in force, demanding identification and information from all motorists, regardless of whether the vehicle had U.S. or Mexican plates.

Yes, I know we've got trouble along our border with Mexico. Bad trouble, in fact. But at what point do we stop being America in order to deal with our trouble? It's been said that all of southern Arizona is already essentially militarized.

This is not the country I grew up in, and it is not the country I love.

[villager]

1. was on a bus going through Texas, summer before last...

Border cops boarded it, (This was at night, on the I-10 outside of El Paso) looking at everyone's i.d.

They really hassled this one guy who didn't have the required "papers" (to travel on a bus!), and after delaying the bus, and sending another squad of border cops at some other checkpoint, we were, finally, back on our way.

Just like traveling around Eastern Europe before the Soviet Union, I thought then.

[Tace]

12. I Remember 35 Years Ago, You Could Smoke A Joint On A Bus, No Problem

Nobody ever said anything. And no checkpoints.

Edit: You could do the same thing in the bathroom of a jet. Didn't even raise an eyebrow.

[Jack_DeLeon]

2. I agree with you...

these checkpoints are pretty fucking rediculous.

I've only been stoped at one while I was driving my girlfriend down to Harlingen, althought it wasnt much of a surprise everyone down here knows about them.

However I think the one that pissed me off more was when I was driving up to San Antonio I got pulled over by the Highway Patrol, OMG I was teh speeding 84mph in a 75mph zone. :eyes:

Anyways I could tell that the trooper was looking for drugs or whatever, asking me those same questions, where I'm from and where I was going.

At the time I didnt give it much thought and I told him I was driving to San Antonio to visit relatives, but afterwards I realized he was just fishing for some reason to search my car or whatever.

Next time I'm pulled over and get those same questions I will not answer them. I have no obligation to give authorities information about my movements or motives.

[havocmom]

3. Me and EVERYBODY else on the freeway north of San Diego stopped

and questioned by border patrol back in 1969. Not happy about what is going on in the SW, but it really isn't that new.

If INS and Border Patrol were serious about stopping illegal immigration, they would be tossing wealthy employers in jail instead of harassing motorists. Illegals would not take the risks of coming into the Southwest US if they didn't have jobs waiting. It is that simple.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. What's the (bad)"trouble along our border with Mexico?"

[Newsjock]

5. Massive inflow of undocumented immigrants

Ever since the California border was tightened, the flow has shifted east to the wide-open spaces of Arizona. Thousands upon thousands cross; some die trying.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

6. I repeat:

"What's the 'bad' trouble?"

Same as it ever was.

[Kali]

7. No its not the same

Nafta has a huge role in this and we aren't talking a few lettuce pickers here we are talking THOUSANDS every single day. I live in SE AZ and I could tell you so many stories. Those fing checkpoints are such a sick joke. They don't do shit except make the traffickers drive off road all over the countryside leaving trash and clothes and blankets and waterbottles and just you would not believe what it looks like. Then further to the west they try to walk through the desert and die out there - several hundred every year. Its INSANE.

Its part and parcel of the plot. No decent jobs - pay shitty wages so third wolrd comes to do them, ship any decent jobs overseas, no welfare. No money for education. What choice do you have? Join up may man, police the world. Travel to far off exotic lands, meet exciting and different people and kill them.

sorry, rant causing subject

[politicat]

8. Nothing new: my dad got this back in the 80s.

We lived in Yuma, AZ for several years in the 80s (Yuma is at the intersection of California, Arizona, and Mexico.) My Indiana born and bred father, recently transferred from DoD to State Dept. of Transportation, made significant round trips weekly in the course of his work.

He also is one of those people who tans very well, had grown out his dark hair for the first time in 20 years, and has brown eyes and wore a mustache. If he was driving his personal vehicle, it was usually a POS. (Piece of $#!+ for you non-initializers.) He got profiled, either as an illegal, a coyote, or a drug runner.

He got pulled over, stopped at checkpoints (and there are lots of them), followed all the time... and remember, he works for ADOT as a civil engineer. He knows most of the cops, most of State Patrol, and a significant percentage of the La Migra personnel.

He took to screwing with them... they ask where he was born, he told them: Mexico. Just north of Peru. (Mexico, IN, 7 miles north of Peru, IN.) Yeah, we can tell where I get my smart-ass, huh?

Pcat

[barb162]

9. 'But at what point do we stop being America in order to deal

with our trouble"

DO YOU HAVE A SOLUTION?

[Newsjock]

14. If I had a solution ...

... I'd run for office. That's why I look to my leaders, who are (I wish) smarter than me.

Heck, we're in it so deep now, I wonder if there even is a solution anymore.

[barb162]

17. that's what I think. I am also afraid terrorists can easily come in

through that border

[bhikkhu]

10. Just wait till they add 10000 more border agents

compliments of the new intelligence reform bill. I believe it requires the training and funding of 2000 a year, for the next five years.

Happy trails...

[jdots]

11. i had the misfortune of turning on A.M. radio

the subject de jour is Mexicans crossing the border and terrorists crossing the border. So be on the lookout for Mexican Terrorists poring over the border to steel our Wall- Mart jobs .
The hate mongering in the media is worse than Berlin 1933 when the fools actually spoke with each other to fall into line of fascistic ignorance.

[Tace]

13. This Is A "Sliders" Episode, Right?

I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. How did I end up here? Anybody know the way back?

[Historic NY]

15. They had one of those check points way out in the upstate boonies of NY

I must have driven in about 15 miles whne I came across one last summer in upstate NY. They had the road blcoked heading soundbound near a new rest area (piss stop). What really threw me was that this was a bout 5-6 exits into NY, one could have gotten off early and avoided the entire thing. The BP looked like a transplant from the Mexican border.

[WolverineDG]

16. i hate to say "big deal"

but those of us who live along the border have had to deal with this stuff every time we want to go north. most of the time the agents are polite, but i've been held up by a couple of nosy nellies because of my bumper stickers & once because the agent wanted to know "what business do you have in corpus so early in the morning?" it was none of his business, but since i didn't want to get pulled over for a secondary inspection & have my car handed back to me in a box, i said "i'm getting a pelvic exam." couldn't have been waved through faster after that.

it still pisses me off though, having to go through a checkpoint, but it made it easier for me to tell if the terror alerts were bs or not & all of them were (judging by the length of the lines & how quickly folks were waved through).

dg