Interior Border Patrol Checkpoints

[MattHanson1990]

This thread is about how I despise interior checkpoints set up by the US border patrol. First of all, why need them when you have a lot of US citizens traveling within their borders and not crossing into Mexico? This doesn't make sense. But the US border patrol sets up checkpoints as far as 25 to 100 miles inland as well as actually patrolling the border. These checkpoints are set up along interstate highways and are supposed to catch illegal immigrants, but in reality, they harass US citizens by means of violating the Fourth Amendment. A border patrol agent usually asks you "Are you a US citizen" and you say "yes", in most cases you get waived through the checkpoint; however, a bunch of US citizens, including myself, had to go into secondary inspection at border patrol checkpoints. If you watch YouTube videos, you will see US citizens being harassed by border patrol officers when trying to stand up for their rights.

Only in America would you have interior checkpoints set up by the border patrol. Mexico has a lot of military checkpoints along its highways but they actually serve their purpose compared to border patrol checkpoints. Even a lot of foreign countries don't have these checkpoints set up miles from the international boundaries.

[fschmidt]

These checkpoints actually made sense in the past. America used to easily give visas to Mexicans to cross for the day to go shopping in America but not to go into the interior of America. I am not sure if this is still done.

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

On I-10 there's an internal checkpoint in San Angelo or some Spanish-named Texan town and they do what Matt is speaking of.

[Taco]

You don't have any rights if your 100 miles from the border, they own your ass. There's going to be a war soon that's why they need checkpoints.

100-Mile Border Zone As "Constitution-Free"
http://www.wired.com/2008/10/aclu-assails-10/

[MattHanson1990]

On I-10 there's an internal checkpoint in San Angelo or some Spanish-named Texan town and they do what Matt is speaking of.

That checkpoint is actually in Sierra Blanca and is just over 80 miles out of El Paso. It's notorious because most of the people getting arrested at the checkpoint are US citizens, and they're getting arrested for MINOR drug offenses. Perhaps, an improvement would be to make traveling more enjoyable is to either have internal checkpoints actually serve their purposes or just close them down completely and have border patrol agents patrol the border. If the checkpoints reverted to serving their intended purposes (catching undocumented immigrants), perhaps there wouldn't be any agents with drug-sniffing dogs and people's cars would not be searched.

[E Irizarry R&B Singer]

On I-10 there's an internal checkpoint in San Angelo or some Spanish-named Texan town and they do what Matt is speaking of.

That checkpoint is actually in Sierra Blanca and is just over 80 miles out of El Paso. It's notorious because most of the people getting arrested at the checkpoint are US citizens, and they're getting arrested for MINOR drug offenses. Perhaps, an improvement would be to make traveling more enjoyable is to either have internal checkpoints actually serve their purposes or just close them down completely and have border patrol agents patrol the border. If the checkpoints reverted to serving their intended purposes (catching undocumented immigrants), perhaps there wouldn't be any agents with drug-sniffing dogs and people's cars would not be searched.

That's it.....It's Sierra Blanca. Thanks for the correction. My memory does not always serve me correctly.

[S_Parc]

Well you know, they need to make sure that you're not shagging a Canadian or Mexican esc*rt on US soil

You can soil 'em but not on Uncle Sam's territory

[tom]

I had a Chinese girlfriend with me and we got stopped on Hwy 111 by the Salton Sea in California. She did not have the correct paperwork but I talked our way out of it. Turned out her paperwork was all fake.