Internal Checkpoints/DHS

[corco]

I decided to take a quick 6 hour trip to the borderlands of southern Arizona to work on driving every mile of state highway in Arizona, and went ahead and clinched I-19 (among other things).

I was moderately scared of the border patrol, and drove by 3 checkpoints but only was going the direction that had to stop for one of them, at I-19. That was really painless- the guy said "How's it going" and I said "good, you?" while another guy walked a dog around the car real quick, and then he said "I'm doing well. Have a good one." and I left. The whole thing took less than 10 seconds- I was expecting a lot more of an ordeal. Is this standard practice or do people have better horror stories?

Another question- do the drug dogs have a shutoff phrase to prevent them from detecting drugs? Whoever trained them certainly also taught them to pretend they don't smell anything if a certain command is given. I wonder what that phrase is. I assume this is the case because the drug dogs are trained by people with easy access to drugs, which means they are likely closet stoners, so it would be in their best interest to secretly teach the dogs to stop searching if a phrase is uttered, because if they are driving up the road with a bag of reefer in the car, they don't want to get busted at the checkpoint. Not that I'm ever going to haul drugs across a checkpoint, but I'm curious as to what that phrase might be. I have little doubt there is one, but I also assume it's a highly guarded secret. (or maybe it's a scent formed by some ridiculously unlikely combination of ingredients- if the dogs smell all of anise, onion, charred javelina, Mello Yello, and drugs, they won't react)

Also, I was driving by myself on Montezuma Canyon Rd (which is a hell of a drive, by the way. That's the scariest road I've ever been on, hands down. Narrow, steep switchbacks with no sign of a guard rail, and very, very poorly graded), which is neat because it's usually only a mile  or two from the border. I saw 10 other vehicles on that trek, 7 of which were DHS SUVs (one dragging tires to try to grade that road, which is a futile effort), and then a convoy of 3 Hummers, all with guys with machine guns on top. None tried to stop and talk to me, which was sort of surprising given how remote the area is and how out of place/suspicious I thought I looked. They weren't very friendly though- the road is super narrow so you have to plan your intersecting position carefully, and they did that, but usually in that situation it's customary to wave. I waved. None of them waved back. Has anybody had any encounters on weird backroads with the Border Patrol?

[Sykotyk]

Tire dragging is to 'clean' the dirt roads so they can spot for footprints or evidence of someone trying to cover their tracks by regrading the dirt to match.

As for checkpoints, they're a breeze. One time I had a drug dog pick up a false positive, but after looking they found nothing (as it should be since I had nothing). Pretty simple. If you're white, you pass through unimpeded. Pretty racist, but that's how it works.

[corco]

Oh, ok. That's what that was for. I was thinking that was a really futile way to try to rebuild the road (and this road needs a fresh layer of dirt on it like a baby needs oxygen) - but that makes sense.

[J N Winkler]

I was moderately scared of the border patrol, and drove by 3 checkpoints but only was going the direction that had to stop for one of them, at I-19. That was really painless- the guy said "How's it going" and I said "good, you?" while another guy walked a dog around the car real quick, and then he said "I'm doing well. Have a good one." and I left. The whole thing took less than 10 seconds- I was expecting a lot more of an ordeal. Is this standard practice or do people have better horror stories?

As Sykotyk says, they are generally a breeze as long as you are (and look like you are) white and law-abiding.  My own problems with Border Patrol checkpoints (which are mild compared to some problems I have encountered at passport control) stem from the fact that I am deaf, while Border Patrol officers expect a person who drives toward them in a car to be able to understand and respond to verbal commands.

My most "interesting" Border Patrol story occurred at the SR 83 checkpoint when I misinterpreted a vague hand gesture.  The Border Patrol officer on point waved his hand from right to left, which in retrospect he probably intended to mean "pull up so we can inspect you" but which I initially took to mean "you are cleared to go."  So I pulled away gradually and stopped when I looked in the rearview mirror and realized they were getting ready to chase me.  Of course I stopped and had to get out of the car while it was given a once-over.  I presented my passport and made it clear to them that I would not be responding to voice commands because I did not want there to be any further opportunities for misunderstanding.  They pulled out pen and paper and explained to me that it was necessary to stop at checkpoints, but did not detain me further.

It is worth keeping in mind that Border Patrol officers are used to dealing with out-of-state motorists who do not realize we have internal checkpoints until the first time they roll up at a Border Patrol checkpoint, and then are angry about the supposed unconstitutionality and Fourth Amendment violations of running vehicular checkpoints.  (The point can be debated, but the courts have ruled that vehicle checkpoints at which all vehicles are stopped, and are subjected to no more than cursory search in the absence of probable cause, do not violate the Fourth Amendment protection against warrantless search.)  At SR 83 I was driving a borrowed car with Arizona plates, unlike all the other previous instances where I have rolled up on Kansas plates, so this might have led the officers to start with an inappropriately streamlined approach.

Another question- do the drug dogs have a shutoff phrase to prevent them from detecting drugs? Whoever trained them certainly also taught them to pretend they don't smell anything if a certain command is given. I wonder what that phrase is. I assume this is the case because the drug dogs are trained by people with easy access to drugs, which means they are likely closet stoners, so it would be in their best interest to secretly teach the dogs to stop searching if a phrase is uttered, because if they are driving up the road with a bag of reefer in the car, they don't want to get busted at the checkpoint. Not that I'm ever going to haul drugs across a checkpoint, but I'm curious as to what that phrase might be. I have little doubt there is one, but I also assume it's a highly guarded secret.

I can't answer this question, but I'd query the assumptions behind it.  Are liquor-store owners alcoholics?  Moreover, training drug dogs is too large an enterprise for one person to handle.  This means that multiple trainers would be working under supervision, and the safe word or scent combination--if such existed--would have to be systematized somehow because there would otherwise be no guarantee that a K-9 unit handling a particular dog would be able to access the safe word or scent combination for which that particular dog had been trained.  Systematization would mean that supervisors would be aware of the existence of a safe word or scent combination and they would have to have a reason for having it which would sound legitimate if it were passed further up the food chain . . . see what I mean?

In practice smugglers don't rely on being able to get around the drug dogs.  What they do instead, as a recent case in El Paso shows, is to buy off Customs supervisors.  The supervisors then find corruptible subordinates to bend (e.g., middle-aged white males who have just gone through expensive divorces and are trying to put kids through college) and phone the check lanes to which they are assigned to the cartels so they can run their cargoes down those lanes.

[corco]

I can't answer this question, but I'd query the assumptions behind it.  Are liquor-store owners alcoholics?  Moreover, training drug dogs is too large an enterprise for one person to handle.  This means that multiple trainers would be working under supervision, and the safe word or scent combination--if such existed--would have to be systematized somehow because there would otherwise be no guarantee that a K-9 unit handling a particular dog would be able to access the safe word or scent combination for which that particular dog had been trained.  Systematization would mean that supervisors would be aware of the existence of a safe word or scent combination and they would have to have a reason for having it which would sound legitimate if it were passed further up the food chain . . . see what I mean?

In practice smugglers don't rely on being able to get around the drug dogs.  What they do instead, as a recent case in El Paso shows, is to buy off Customs supervisors.  The supervisors then find corruptible subordinates to bend (e.g., middle-aged white males who have just gone through expensive divorces and are trying to put kids through college) and phone the check lanes to which they are assigned to the cartels so they can run their cargoes down those lanes.

That...makes sense. Much more efficient to buy off customs folks than to make up some conspiracy to fool drug dogs

[vdeane]

As far as I'm concerned, road blocks are unconstitutional.  The courts just don't care; in fact, they're probably a part of the conspiracy to turn the US into a police state!  Simply driving (or boarding a plane, for that matter) is not reasonable suspicion for a search.

[mightyace]

^^^^

Well, conspiracy or not, the courts have set precedents on controversial subjects that they later overturned.

One of the most famous is on school segregation.

The Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 allowed state-sponsored segregation.

That decision was overturned on May 17, 1954 in the Brown vs. Board of Education case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

We can only hope that a future court decision will overturn the ruling(s) that have made such roadblocks constitutional.

EDIT:
Not a bad reference to ponder over on the eve of Martin Luther King day.

[J N Winkler]

Well, conspiracy or not, the courts have set precedents on controversial subjects that they later overturned.

One of the most famous is on school segregation.

The Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 allowed state-sponsored segregation.

That decision was overturned on May 17, 1954 in the Brown vs. Board of Education case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_Education

We can only hope that a future court decision will overturn the ruling(s) that have made such roadblocks constitutional.

We can hope that it will happen, but I don't believe that it will.  The Border Patrol has its own historical museum in El Paso, just off Loop 375 (Transmountain Highway) west of the interchange with US 54.  I have visited it and it contains photographs of Border Patrol checkpoints going back to the 1920's and even earlier, including a number near the Canadian border (apparently they run one just south of the Pembina border crossing in North Dakota).  This means that the concept of an internal frontier checkpoint in the US has lasted for at least 90 years, which is longer than the legal doctrine of "separate but equal" and just about as long as Jim Crow.  Moreover, some of that 90 years predates strict immigration control for all nationalities (we have had it for Chinese only since 1885, and other nationalities since the 1920's IIRC), and much of it came before the emergence of the modern national security state.  Nogales received its first Border Patrol agent in 1854.

Personally, I think the abolition of Border Patrol checkpoints will happen only if, at some point in the distant future, Mexico achieves full economic convergence with the US.  For similar reasons, absent a step change in technology, I don't think we will ever return to the nineteenth-century reality of passport-free international travel.

The Wikipedia articles on random checkpoints and Border Patrol interior checkpoints have some information on the Supreme Court jurisprudence involved.  There is also an article on Mexican garitas, which are actually full Customs checkpoints where the responsible agents have far wider powers of search than Border Patrol agents do at internal checkpoints in the US.  (I'm not sure what Wikipedia's authority for the garita term is--I don't remember ever seeing them signed as such and the approach signing has variants of "Pare para inspección aduanal a 300 m.")

In regard to aviation security checkpoints:  while I believe the latest round of changes ("enhanced pat-downs," Compton scattering/millimeter wave scanning, etc.) amount to security theater, I don't think we will ever get rid of aviation security altogether.  People have been bringing planes down with bombs since 1938 at least (a Lockheed Constellation was involved in that, IIRC).  We have had the whole rigmarole with manned checkpoints, X-ray scanners for hand luggage, and metal detectors since the early 1970's, I think mainly to hold off a recurrence of the Dawson's Field hijackings.  As late as 1969 it was possible for a person to carry a Browning 9-mm on a passenger flight in hand luggage.

Basic point:  enhanced measures often look like security theatre, which they frequently are, and if they are costly and not seen to pay their way, they may be abandoned at some future point (as Britain is considering doing right now with the 100-mL limit on liquids in hand luggage), but on the other hand neither airlines nor aviation security agencies can afford to ignore the no-brainers like bombs and firearms in hand luggage.  Back in the 1930's, when one in every five thousand air passengers could expect to die in a plane crash, a casual approach to security might have been acceptable, but we now live in an age when one day in September 2001 can cause a good aviation-safety year to turn into a middling-bad one.

[Truvelo]

How effective are the internal checkpoints in Arizona? The examples I saw a couple of years ago appeared to be in fixed locations so surely any illegals passing through will get to know where they are and will take routes around them. This assumes they are traveling in vehicles. Surely those on foot will avoid main roads, and the checkpoints, altogether?

[J N Winkler]

They aren't all in fixed locations--Wikipedia says about half nationally are mobile checkpoints (sometimes referred to as "tactical" checkpoints), and in fact all the checkpoints in the Tucson district are mobile.  There are apparently plans to build a major permanent checkpoint on I-19 north of Nogales (with a minimum eight check lanes) but I will be very surprised if anything is done within the next few years.

[corco]

Is Wikipedia right about that? Of the three checkpoints I saw, the I-19 checkpoint has a gigantic canopy that stretches the width of the carriageway- it doesn't look like it would be easily movable- do they really move that sucker every 2 weeks?

The SR 80 checkpoint also had a permanent looking setup with building, but SR 83 looked like it could be easily moved around.

Edit with pictures:

I-19 has these permanent looking signs as you come up to it (in English units  ), and then I didn't get a picture of the station for some reason (I could have sworn I did), but you can see part of the canopy structure to the left of the last image, and you can see the top of the canopy in the second image (the white thing in the distance). Old 89, by the way is closed before the checkpoint and looks to be used for parking by DHS. In the third shot, you can see a permanent looking DEAD END sign with banner off to the right.




The checkpoints on 80 and 83 had this more temporary looking signage as you came up to it


Here's the 80 checkpoint, by the way. Maybe it is actually mobile. Hard to tell. I wasn't able to get a shot of 83- it was at the bottom of a little valley in the middle of nowhere and there wasn't a good way to get a picture of it without being seen. The 80 checkpoint is right after the 80/82 junction. I turned left on 82 and didn't have to go through it.

[Sykotyk]

Interstates have relatively permanent stations (I-10 east of El Paso, I-35, I-10 west of Las Cruces, etc). US 83 from Laredo, some other smaller state routes, etc. The non-standard routes tend to be simply a few cars on the side of the road, some signs, maybe an umbrella or canopy to protect from the sun, etc.

First, they're at least 25 miles from the border (Mexican truck drivers are allowed to enter up to 25 miles, so this is a good chance to catch them, even if you take into account the now revoked pilot program). Secondly, they're pretty straight forward. They ask if you're a US citizen, if you're not, and you lie, you're in deep ****. If you're in a Mexican car, or there's 12 of you in a minivan, they may question you, etc.

Sykotyk

[J N Winkler]

Is Wikipedia right about that? Of the three checkpoints I saw, the I-19 checkpoint has a gigantic canopy that stretches the width of the carriageway- it doesn't look like it would be easily movable- do they really move that sucker every 2 weeks?

I think Wikipedia could very well be out of date as regards I-19.  I last travelled on it in January 2009 and I am fairly sure there was no permanent checkpoint then, though I can't be 100% sure since I didn't return northbound--in fact my encounter with the Border Patrol at the SR 83 checkpoint occurred on this loop from Tucson through Nogales.  I-19 has definitely had nothing more than a mobile checkpoint the other times I have travelled on it.  When I went northbound in March 1998, the Border Patrol checkpoint was at Peck Canyon Drive (Exit 20), and when I went the same direction in January 2003, it was at a different exit (maybe Duval Mine Road?).  In all of these cases the traffic was diverted up an off-ramp at a diamond interchange and then sent back down the Interstate on the on-ramp directly opposite.

When I ran into it in 2009, the SR 83 checkpoint was on the leeward side of a mountain pass north of Sonoita, so you could not see it until you were almost on top of it, and I felt the advance signing was somewhat abbreviated.  I suspect they chose that location to give themselves a (slight) edge of surprise over the people they are trying to catch.

The SR 80 checkpoint also had a permanent looking setup with building, but SR 83 looked like it could be easily moved around.

For SR 83 this was definitely the case in January 2009.  I suspect they recycle locations and you may very well have found it at the same location I did.

I-19 has these permanent looking signs as you come up to it (in English units  ), and then I didn't get a picture of the station for some reason (I could have sworn I did), but you can see part of the canopy structure to the left of the last image, and you can see the top of the canopy in the second image (the white thing in the distance).

Regarding the units--I think they used English to accord with ADOT Tucson District's long-term plan to kill metric on I-19 (now stymied, possibly temporarily, by public opposition).  The Crossing rebuild (I-10/I-19 trumpet-to-wye conversion) rolled back metric signing to the Ajo Way exit in 2004, but the Chamber of Commerce interests are finding changes in exit numbers to go with English-unit signing hard to swallow, while the tourism promotion folks see metric signing on I-19 as an attraction and don't want it to go away.

[mightyace]

And Clearview to boot!  Talk about adding insult to injury!

[corco]

When I ran into it in 2009, the SR 83 checkpoint was on the leeward side of a mountain pass north of Sonoita, so you could not see it until you were almost on top of it, and I felt the advance signing was somewhat abbreviated.  I suspect they chose that location to give themselves a (slight) edge of surprise over the people they are trying to catch.

That sounds exactly like where it  was yesterday- and I'd echo the same comments about limited advance signage. I recall a trailer there for sure, but I don't remember a booth-like building like SR 80 had. That said, I was driving the opposite direction and didn't have to interact with the checkpoint, so I could be mistaken.

Actually, wait, I do have one really bad picture of it (it was just after a reassurance shield, so I caught it in the background)- MP 40 was where it was, by the way. There appears to be a booth-building, so I was mistaken.

[vdeane]

I-19 is officially mobile because of public opposition to a permanent station.  That doesn't mean border patrol treats in like a mobile station.

Call me naive, but I don't get why we can't go back to passport-free travel (I still remember when customs was just a formality traveling between the US and Canada); the only thing different with the world today is increased globalization (ironically an argument for LESS travel controls, not more).  To me, borders are mostly just lines on a map.

There have been studies showing that interior checkpoints are useless at securing our border.  Border patrol ignores them, however.
https://www.checkpointusa.org/blog/index.php/2009/09/06/p177

Regarding airport security: we should just scrap the current system and use the Israeli model.  We need to look for people, not things.  What we've got now is 90% security theater and designed to break us in for more restrictive security measures in the future.  The TSA is also way too reactive - they need to be proactive.  I can't wait to see what happens after the first rectal bomber is caught.

Oh, does anyone know where northern checkpoints are?  The only one I know of is the I-87 one, which seems to be open about as often as NY's truck inspection stations (if other words, not very much) according to someone that has a cottage just north of it.

[corco]

As of 2007/2008 there were none in Washington state- you could drive right along the border on Boundary Rd near Sumas and not feel like you were somewhere you weren't supposed to be.

[Truvelo]

I should clarify the point I made regarding fixed locations in Arizona. By fixed I meant they were always using the same locations rather than the facilities being permanent structures. The ones I saw on SR-85 and I-8 were little more than tents and cones.

[agentsteel53]

I was moderately scared of the border patrol, and drove by 3 checkpoints but only was going the direction that had to stop for one of them, at I-19. That was really painless- the guy said "How's it going" and I said "good, you?" while another guy walked a dog around the car real quick, and then he said "I'm doing well. Have a good one." and I left. The whole thing took less than 10 seconds- I was expecting a lot more of an ordeal. Is this standard practice or do people have better horror stories?

it's all fun and games until someone asks you your citizenship.  then, either I can lie ("US citizen, sir!  All Muslims must die!  Dick Cheney is a superior lifeform!") or tell the truth ("Hungarian citizenship, green card") at which point I am being asked - in direct violation of my fourth amendment rights: "your papers, please!"

I dislike being asked.  I hate, hate, hate being forced to drive myself into their trap, where I could've avoided an interrogation by lying, but instead - for telling the truth - they give me the nine yards.

I do not remember the Supreme Court case, but sometime ago it was verified that the Bill of Rights applied to non-citizens and generally everyone on American soil.  Therefore, this double standard is flagrantly illegal.

[agentsteel53]

Call me naive, but I don't get why we can't go back to passport-free travel (I still remember when customs was just a formality traveling between the US and Canada); the only thing different with the world today is increased globalization (ironically an argument for LESS travel controls, not more).  To me, borders are mostly just lines on a map.

because people are far the fuck too attached to details beyond their control.

ever notice how people cling desperately to the religion of their parents as though it were their own?

same with ethnicity.

people are fucking weird.

treaty of Westphalia or bust!

remember, kids, if you see a Mexican today, stab him.  Jesus will reward you, because Mexicans aren't really people.