(Image source from: Border Patrol checkpoint a point of conflict})

Some residents of Arivaca want to monitor one of the Border Patrol checkpoints. The Arivaca residents want to see for themselves the number of drug seizures and arrests made at the checkpoints in a day.

People residing in the border area have for a long time demanded the removal of these checkpoints placed on the roads that leads into their town, some 60 miles from Tucson towards the southwest.

Leesa Jacobson, one of the organizers stated that the Border Patrol checkpoints are a harassment to residents of Arivaca, who have to go through searches and racial profiling everyday. Besides, the checkpoints cause delays to the residents on a regular basis, she added.

This is the first such effort by residents to independently monitor one of the 170 Border Patrol checkpoints that have been set up on the roads and highways of US.

However a Border Patrol spokesman stated that data for individual checkpoints will not be released by the agency.

The current effort by Arivaca residents is one of the several efforts in the longstanding fight to remove Border Patrol checkpoints.

(Picture Source: tucsoncitizen.com)

(AW: Pratima Tigga)