Border Patrol Harasses Local Protesters, Tells Them ‘You Have No Rights Here’

Border Patrol checkpointWhen
last we dropped in
on the good people of Arivaca, Arizona, they
were keeping a close eye on a Border Patrol checkpoint that
controls access to their community and puts just about anybody
entering or leaving town through an Iron Curtain nostalgia
tour.

Tired of running the gauntlet, locals set up a monitoring
operation at the checkpoint, where they simultaneously protested
and recorded the agents’ activities.

Border Patrol didn’t like that. The agents got nasty.

How nasty? In a
letter dated April 16 and sent to Manuel Padilla, Jr., Chief Border
Patrol Agent for the Tucson sector
, the American Civil
Liberties Union of Arizona describes agents at the Arivaca
checkpoint threatening protesters with arrest, forcing them behind
an arbitrary line at the edge of a “Border Patrol Enforcement
Zone,” refusing to identify themselves, cursing at the locals, and
blocking their view of agents’ activities.

Some of the agents’ actions are incredibly petty, such as
parking a running vehicle so that the exhaust vents directly at the
protesters. Then when they move, agents set another running vehicle
in front of them.

Meanwhile, the feds let a local Border Patrol supporter into
their checkpoint to turn his cameras on the protesters.

So matters are pretty tense betwen Arivacans and Border Patrol.
What started all of this? An
ACLU complaint filed in January
details some of the abuses.

One former local business owner (her small business suffered
from the decline in tourism caused by the checkpoint and was forced
to close its doors at the end of 2013) described being detained on
her way to a doctor’s appointment following a heart attack, held
for over an hour in the hot sun, not permitted to sit down, and
denied water. Other Arivacans report that agents at the checkpoint
have told them, “You have no rights here,” or that all community
members are considered suspect simply by virtue of living in
Arivaca.

The “you have no rights here” comment was documented in an op-ed by
activist John Heid.

The caption for a picture of a school bus at the Arivaca
checkpoint from the End Border Patrol
Checkpoints Facebook
page
points out
:

Our children live in a world where they pass through a
military-style checkpoint every morning and afternoon for school.
Every time their parents take them to Tucson shopping. Every time
they go to a friends house in Amado, or to Karate in Sahuarita. Men
carry guns, dogs bark, lights flash.

So a federal agency has basically declared war on an American
community because it doesn’t embrace agents’ presence with open
arms.

Below you can see a video of a uniformed douchebag with an
attitude about “your little civil rights thing” harangue a woman
for politely asking him to justify his actions. Imagine driving
through this checkpoint every single day.

Woman Screamed at and
Harrassed At Border Patrol Checkpoint
from End BP Checkpoints on Vimeo.

from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1l9equX
via IFTTT

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.