Homeland Security Sets up Suspicionless Checkpoints Along Roads in Washington State

seattle.indymedia.org

Homeland security has setup up 3 internal checkpoints on the Olympic Peninsula. These checkpoints are in addition to checkpoints at Washington Ferry docks and highway border crossings. According to the U.S. Border Patrol, it has a jurisdiction of about 100 miles from the border. This puts most of Washington state in an area where border checkpoints are authorized, including Seattle.

In August and again in the beginning of September, the Department of Homeland Security has set up suspicion-less checkpoints on the Washington peninsula. The checkpoints are in the town of Forks, at the west side of the Hood Canal bridge going east bound, and at the third near Discovery Bay on US 101. Forks is a timber town of 3,200 people that is 56 miles from the nearest ferry terminal connecting Washington to Canada. At the road checkpoints there and elsewhere, the border patrol ask drivers different types of questions to gauge their status in the U.S., including questions about citizenship. Please review this video to understand how to deal with this illegal check points: 

You don't have to answer Border Patrol's questions. Ask if you are being detained.

At the end of August, about 60 people demonstrated against the
Forks Border Patrol checkpoint. Edgar Ayala, a Forks High School
athlete who graduated with honors in June, was arrested on August 20th
at the Border Patrol checkpoint and deported to Mexico. Tanya Ward, one
of the organizers of the protest, is a member of the Hoh tribe and told
a reporter from the Penninsula Daily News that she felt that
immigrants are treated with the same unfairness shown to Native
Americans. She said, "I don't think it's right for them to be taken out
of their homes when their children are here and they're not doing
anything wrong."

If you are interested in protesting these illegal road blocks please contact me: ceakins at gmail dot com

I live in the Peninsula, in Kitsap county.