Border Patrol violates spirit, if not letter, of law in Tucson

DHS inspector general last week said that Border Patrol officials in Arizona were obeying congressional edicts requiring tactical checkpoints in the Tucson area to be moved every fourteen days and barring permanent checkpoints. The IG found that the Border Patrol obeyed the letter of the law, but some lawmakers say authorities in Tucson are ignoring the intent of a provision in a 2005 homeland security bill by briefly closing checkpoints and then reopening them. “The intent of [checkpoint] language is not simply to shut down the checkpoints for a few minutes or hours in the middle of the night, only to continue at the same location the next morning,” wrote Representative Harold Rogers (R-Kentucky), chairman of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, and subcommittee member Jim Kolbe (R-Arizona), in a letter to the IG asking for an investigation into the Border Patrol’s compliance with the law. The IG agreed that the Border Patrol was not following the law as explained by Rogers and Kolbe:

“This investigation proves the inability of the Customs and Border Protection [CBP] to respect the will of Congress,” Kolbe said in an e-mailed statement. Kolbe, whose district includes parts of Tucson, is a champion of the checkpoint restrictions, which were most recently included in the fiscal 2005 Homeland Security appropriations bill (PL 108-334). “The intent of Congress was very clear: checkpoints should not be permanent installations,” Kolbe said. Early versions of the prohibition first appeared on the books in fiscal 1999. Still, the IG said the Border Patrol had complied with the specifics of the statute’s language, if not congressional intent.

At issue is a debate over what checkpoint method is more effective —mobile checkpoints (Representative Kolbe’s view) or permanent checkpoints (DHS view).

-read more in this Benton Ives-Halperin’s CQ report (sub. req.)