As previously reported,
Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords organized a community meeting in Green
Valley, Arizona last week to discuss the recent findings of a GAO study on interior Border Patrol checkpoints.
Since federal officials have been trying to shove a permanent
checkpoint down the throats of Southern Arizonans for years, this issue
has been of great interest to many of us living in the state.
Checkpoint USA was on hand to record the meeting and is now making it available to the general public. This is part two of the meeting and highlights a presentation by Richard Stana with the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Part one is available here:
In part one, I pointed out that the GAO presentation was misleading for the following reasons:
• It ignored fundamental facts regarding alien interdiction rates inside the country v the actual border.
• It misrepresented Border Patrol legal authority at interior checkpoints in comparison to the actual border.
• It
brazenly concluded interior checkpoints are needed because ports of
entry are designed to be purposefully ineffective so as to not overly
burden border traffic and commerce.
In part two,
GAO representative Richard Stana provides us with even more material to
work with. The following points are highlights from the video:
• Smuggling
operations have such a good intelligence network, they know within
minutes when the operational status of a checkpoint has changed. Mr.
Stana tries to spin this fact as showing how effective checkpoints are
when in reality it shows the exact opposite. Interior checkpoints catch
low hanging fruit and sacrificial lambs, not the well organized efforts
of multi-billion dollar smuggling operations.
• Mr. Stana
forlornly points out that the Tucson sector is the only sector along
the Southern border than doesn't have a permanent checkpoint. What he
fails to point out at the same time is that nearly 50% of all alien
interdictions in the country take place in the Tucson sector WITHOUT a
permanent checkpoint, perhaps even because of the absence of a
permanent checkpoint.
• Mr. Stana discusses the differences
between permanent checkpoints and tactical or temporary checkpoints and
tries to claim tactical checkpoints cannot be operated 24/7 like
permanent checkpoints. When one references Mr. Stana's 147 page GAO
report however, we learn that at least one tactical checkpoint in
Arizona has been operating at the same frequency as most permanent
checkpoints around the country. Clearly, tactical checkpoints can be
operated as frequently as permanent checkpoint but Mr. Stana didn't
want facts (from his own report) to stand in the way of his conclusion.
• Mr.
Stana states that the permanent checkpoint being planned for I-19 in
Southern Arizona will cost at least 25 million dollars. Mr. Stana makes
no attempt to analyze the opportunity cost of diverting initial
checkpoint costs and its yearly budgetary/manpower requirements from
actual border operations. In fact, no where in the 147 page GAO report
do the authors attempt to do a cost-benefit comparison to actual border
operations.
• Mr. Stana brazenly claims that interior
checkpoint operations assist with border security operations because
some illegal aliens and some contraband are discovered at interior
checkpoints. Once again, Mr. Stana makes no opportunity cost analysis.
Additionally by Mr. Stana's criteria, random house to house searches
would also contribute to border security because such operations would
find some aliens and some contraband material. That doesn't mean we
should throw out the Constitution and Bill of Rights to do it. I should
also point out that according to Mr. Stana in part one, Ports of Entry
only attempt to interdict 30% of major illegal activity passing through
them making it clear real border security isn't all that important to
these same government bureaucrats pushing interior suspicionless
checkpoints on the American people.
• In order to justify
internal checkpoints, Mr. Stana is more than happy to throw out
statistics regarding the number of drug seizures made at internal
checkpoints as a percentage of all Border Patrol drug seizures
nationwide. What Mr. Stana fails to mention is that the majority of
these vaunted 'drug busts' are in reality simple possession cases.
Small amounts of marijuana used for medical or recreational purposes
that federal prosecutors refuse to prosecute. You can find out more on
this particular issue at:
• It's
also interesting to note that Stana refrained from doing a similar
analysis for the number alien interdictions. I had to dig through the
147 page report to find the pertinent information. Even then, I had to
read the numbers off of various bar graphs. The results were dismal.
Nationwide, interior Border Patrol checkpoints interdicted a mere
17,000 aliens out of more than 704,000 in 2008. This accounts for a
mere 2.5% making it perfectly clear that border operations are far more
effective at interdiction than interior checkpoints - especially when
it takes more than 4% of Border Patrol resources to reach this number.
• Tucson sector numbers are even worse with 10% of sector agents
only accounting for 0.5% of all sector interdictions. Given these
numbers, it's clear the primary purpose of interior checkpoints is drug
interdiction, not alien interdiction. Something the Supreme Court ruled
illegal in City of Indianapolis v Edmond in 2000.
• Mr.
Stana claims that interior checkpoints were responsible for
interdicting three individuals associated with terrorists activities in
2008 but refused to give details. Absent details, it's hard to take Mr.
Stana's claim seriously. Where are the facts? Where are the
prosecutions? How did he define 'terrorist activity? What laws were the
individuals charged with violating if any?
• Given the fact that the DHS Inspector General has reported
that ICE's office of Detention and Removal has released over 45,000
individuals into the country while awaiting final deportation orders
who originated from countries on terrorist watch lists and another
30,000 with criminal records, it's hard to take Mr. Stana's claim
seriously without context. In other words, nothing more than scare
tactics.
In summary, the second part of Mr. Stana's
presentation was even more disappointing than the first. Mr. Stana went
out of his way to ignore facts that undermined his conclusion that
interior checkpoints are needed while artificially bolstering facts
absent proper context that supported his position.
