Border official: Interstate 19 checkpoint needed, if not wanted

“A checkpoint is not something we want, but we’ve identified it as something we need,” Tucson Sector chief Robert Gilbert said. “In a perfect environment, we would secure the border at the border.”

Gilbert made his statements during a meeting at the West Social Center put together to allow the public to ask questions of the Border Patrol and the authors of a just-released Government Accountability Office study on border checkpoint effectiveness in the Southwest.

About 200 people attended the event, which was moderated by Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, one of eight members of Congress to request the report in December 2007.

Richard Stana, the GAO’s director of homeland security and justice issues, told the overwhelmingly anti-permanent checkpoint crowd his staff was unable to find any data that directly linked such checkpoints in other parts of the Southwest to trends in real estate values, violent crime rates, tourism or usage of state parks, all concerns cited by residents up and down the I-19 corridor.

Stana also said the size of the projected $25 million permanent checkpoint — which is proposed for near kilometer post 41, just south of Amado — is based as much on recommendations by the Arizona Department of Transportation based on traffic projections as it is on the Border Patrol’s needs for space.

“I’m not trying to sell this, I’m trying to explain it,” Stana said of the proposed facility, which would include eight inspection lanes and cover 18 acres.

After the meeting, Giffords told reporters she is in favor of a checkpoint along I-19, but would not say if that meant a permanent one.

“What I support right now is beefing up the interim checkpoint, something which should have been done two years ago,” Giffords said. “It would be great if we didn’t have this problem, but we do.”