Immigrants fear license checks

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times
El Paso Times

Traffic checkpoints by El Paso County sheriff's deputies are in part fueling fears of an immigration crackdown among county residents, community activists said.

Some residents are staying home out of fear of a possible deportation, said Miguel Miranda, East El Paso coordinator for the Border Network for Human Rights. The group will have several meetings on the matter this weekend.

"They are jailed in their own homes because of the collaboration of the sheriff with Border Patrol is 100 percent; whoever the (deputy) person stops, later they have immigration behind them," Miranda said.

Sheriff's spokesman Rick Glancey said that the driver's license and insurance checkpoints have been around for years and that the office is responding to complaints from motorists about uninsured drivers, he said.

"There is nothing illegal about a driver's license check," Glancey said. "We do these all the time. We do them all over - Vinton, Westway, Zaragoza."

Though deputies do not enforce immigration law, under Operation Linebacker they do turn over suspected undocumented immigrants to the Border Patrol.

If you are legal and not breaking the law, you have no reason to fear. But if you are illegal and/or breaking the law, you have plenty to fear. -mm