Protests intensify against Border Patrol checkpoints in Washington State

author : Stop the Checkpoints Committee topic : Protests

by Stop the Checkpoints Committee

Incensed at Border Patrol roadblocks that stop every car and check drivers’ nationalities, over 200 demonstrators took to the streets on Sept. 20 in Port Angeles, Washington. It was the third and largest protest yet by residents on the Olympic Peninsula, a rural area of rain forests and waterways in the northwest corner of the state. Access is primarily by ferry boat or by Highway 101, which loops around the peninsula.

The Sept. 20 demonstration was sparked by a protest three weeks earlier by the classmates of two teenagers who were detained on Aug. 20. Both were swiftly deported to Mexico, despite the fact that both young men grew up in Forks, a small coastal town. One of them, Edgar Ayala, 18, had just graduated with honors from the local high school. Protest organizer Tanya Ward, a tribal member from the Hoh reservation near Forks, said, "Just as Native Americans were pushed aside and shoved onto reservations, they want to do the same thing to immigrants. Who gives them the right?"

Protest escalates. Meanwhile, longtime Port Angeles resident Lois Danks, who heads up the local chapter of Radical Women, put out a call for a Sept. 6 community meeting to plan actions against the checkpoints. Galvanized by word of the student protest in Forks, residents converged from five cities and towns across the Peninsula. They were family members of deported immigrant workers, Native American tribal members, small business owners, students, teachers, feminists, and civil liberties and peace activists. There were people who had never protested before combined with seasoned organizers from the Socialist, Green, Freedom Socialist and Democratic parties. Then and there the group decided to form a committee and named it "Stop the Checkpoints."

The new committee chose to kick off their campaign with a Sept. 20 march and rally in Port Angeles, the largest city on the Peninsula, because the Border Patrol is headquartered there. Committee members blanketed the region with a flyer featuring the Statue of Liberty, with the slogans “Defend Civil Liberties”; “No Racial Profiling, Raids & Detentions”; “Defend Immigrant Workers and their Families”; “No Police State on the Olympic Peninsula!”

The flyer struck a chord with residents outraged at being stopped and interrogated on their way to school, work and the grocery store. Feelings were already running high in reaction to frequent security spot-checks at the ferry docks. In June ferry worker John Norby, backed by his union, blew the whistle and refused to cooperate when an undercover Border Patrol agent attempted to recruit him to spy on passengers.

By August, increased funding for the Border Patrol resulted in 45 permanently stationed agents in this sparsely populated, economically depressed area. In the last month, the Patrol, assisted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and local police, have repeatedly set up unannounced checkpoints at several locations along Highway 101. Twenty-five people were detained -- 10 for minor drug offenses and 14 for not carrying proper immigration papers. News of the upcoming Sept. 20 action quickly spread as the local press and Spanish language TV picked up the story and an article by People’s Weekly World journalist Tim Wheeler was circulated widely.

Speaking out for immigrants and civil liberties. People car-pooled to the Sept. 20 march and rally from throughout the peninsula, and some from as far away as Seattle and Victoria, British Columbia. A contingent of Hoh tribal youth led the diverse group of marchers, which included everyone from babies in strollers to retirees, and residents of all colors, foreign and native-born alike.

Addressing a spirited crowd, Stop the Checkpoints coordinator Danks called on the government to "Stop this drive to criminalize people and whip up fear! Stop trying to equate immigrants with terrorists and drug smugglers. The Olympic Peninsula is not about to be a pilot project for a police state."

As Iranian-born Layla Iranshad, a teacher from Forks, summed it up, "Undocumented Latinos are not alone in challenging these checkpoints. U.S. citizens realize that arbitrary Border Patrol checkpoints are bringing this country one step closer to a complete police state."

In the days following the rally, numerous offers of help, legal advice and fundraising ideas poured into the Stop the Checkpoints Committee, which is currently planning follow-up actions. Committee members can be reached at info@stopthecheckpoints.com or 360-452-7534.