Caltrans lets Minutemen 'adopt' road at checkpoint

By Leslie Berestein

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

January 13, 2008

The state transportation department's decision to allow a controversial anti-illegal-immigration group to adopt a stretch of Interstate 5 in San Diego County infuriates some Latino groups and anti-bigotry activists.

In late November, Caltrans granted permission to the San Diego Minutemen to join its Adopt-A-Highway road-cleanup program, which allows individuals, organizations, businesses or public agencies to “adopt” stretches of state highway to clean up, either by themselves or by hiring a contractor.

In what a Caltrans spokesman said is a coincidence, the stretch of freeway that the group adopted is the one on which the Border Patrol's San Clemente checkpoint sits.