DOGGY STYLE

BORDER PATROL CHECKPOINTS NEAR YUMA NAB HORDES
OF POT USERS HEADED BACK FROM THE BEACH

The small sedan slowed as it approached the U.S. Border Patrol
checkpoint on a deserted section of Interstate 8 east of Yuma. The car
contained three middle-age women on their way back to the Valley after
a planning retreat in San Diego.

The past three days had been idyllic and productive as the women
lounged on the beach, making art and chatting over ideas for the
future of their ceramics business.

The self-described hippies had taken marijuana to the beach and were
returning with some of it in the car. One of them, Mary (like others
quoted in this article, she agreed to talk about her experience only
if New Times used a pseudonym) was unapologetic.

"I would never quit. I like my life, you know?" the 56-year-old says
later of her pot use. "None of us drink. We're leftover people from
the '60s and '70s."

Mary, the oldest of the group, was driving. She didn't sweat the
traffic stop as her car rolled up. She'd been through this same
movable checkpoint along the stretch of I-8 East before and had never
had a problem.

This time, something was different. She noticed that the checkpoint
seemed better staffed than usual. One green-shirted agent manned a
small, white booth while others milled about near tents,
office-trailers, and patrol cars. Another agent walked a dog, which
held its snout high as it sniffed along a line of slowing vehicles.

As Mary's sedan neared, the dog tensed as if it had seen a rabbit,
straining at its leash and jerking its human handler forward. Mary was
told to park her car under a large canopy to the right of the road. An
agent walked up to the driver's-side window and asked her if she would
consent to a search of the vehicle.

"This was pretty intimidating," she recalls. "They had guns and were
wearing fatigues. We're three little ladies from Phoenix who are calm,
peaceful people."

The women were asked to step out and stand a few feet away as the dog
trounced through the car.

A moment later, one of the agents confronted the group.

"Well, you obviously don't have any illegal immigrants in the car," he
said. "My dog signaled for marijuana. Does anyone want to say anything?"

The women said nothing, but the agents soon found about a half-ounce
of pot and a small wooden pipe. The women were made to sit in a
holding cell in one of the Border Patrol trailers.

"I was, like, 'Come on. I'm a grandma,'" says Mary. But the agents
showed no reaction to her plea. Mary took the blame for the pot and
paraphernalia because she says it was "critical" that her business
partners have no arrest record.

An agent handed Mary, who had never before been busted for anything
harsher than a traffic violation, a citation listing two charges:
possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

For additional photos from the border check points near Yuma, check
out the slide show: Pot Shots

Stories like Mary's used to be rare, compared to what's going on at
the Border Patrol's two Yuma Sector checkpoints nowadays.

In the past, small-time drug users were busted occasionally. The
Border Patrol has used dogs at its checkpoints for at least two
decades, mainly for the purpose of detecting human cargo. But until a
few years ago, it employed far fewer than it does now, which meant
dogs were not routinely placed at the checkpoints near Yuma. Also, the
checkpoints were often closed because fewer agents were available to
staff them.

Since late 2005, though, the number of Yuma Sector agents has risen 55
percent -- to about 850 agents, up from 550, as of January. Augmenting
those agents are hundreds of National Guard soldiers who are part of a
6,000-troop border-protection plan called Operation Jump Start,
ordered by President Bush in mid-2006.

The number of K9 dogs also has increased, to more than 30, up from
four in 1999. The animals are trained to sniff out hidden human
beings, marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, and meth-related
drugs such as Ecstasy.

The beefed-up resources and the addition of more than 50 miles of
fencing along the border south of the Yuma area have slowed illegal
immigration in the sector to a trickle compared with what it was just
two years ago.

These days, the checkpoints on eastbound Interstate 8 and northbound
Arizona 95 near Yuma (a passageway to the I-10 and I-40 corridors
linking Arizona and California) are open 24 hours a day. And with the
addition of seven times more K9 dogs, they have become the biggest
weed traps in the country.

Strictly in terms of quantity, other checkpoints catch more dope. The
Border Patrol is allowed to set up roadblocks as far as 100 miles from
any national border, and it operates 33 permanent and numerous other
"tactical" or movable checkpoints on the Mexican and Canadian
frontiers. In the Southwest, checkpoints are typically found on
California's north-south I-5, numerous small highways near Mexico,
such as Arizona's Highway 86, and along I-10 between Tucson and El
Paso, Texas. The Border Patrol sometimes puts up movable checkpoints
on I-10 between Phoenix and Los Angeles, but it's rare to encounter
one.

Drug-sniffing dogs at some of the checkpoints, especially the ones
south of Tucson and through Texas, find literally tons of marijuana
being smuggled from Mexico.

But the Border Patrol and other law enforcement officials in the
Southwest report that no checkpoints in the United States bust as many
small-time marijuana users as the ones near Yuma, on I-8 and Arizona
95.

The past three years have seen an explosion of such cases. In just 11
months last year, the two checkpoints nabbed more than 1,200 people
for possession of marijuana -- and usually for smaller amounts than
what Mary carried.

The majority of the busts occurred at the checkpoint along eastbound
I-8, the freeway that carries vacationers between Arizona and San Diego.

Consequences are toughest for people caught with hard drugs.
Possession of such drugs as meth, cocaine, or heroin will result in a
long drive to the county jail in Yuma. But even for personal amounts
of marijuana, citations are issued that can result in fines and big
hassles.

The I-8 checkpoint garnered national attention in January after rapper
Lil Wayne was arrested there. He was charged with carrying marijuana,
cocaine, Ecstasy, and a handgun. He pleaded not guilty last month.

Few would argue that big dope smugglers or those carrying an arsenal
of hard drugs shouldn't feel the pinch of the law. If it weren't for
the trained dogs, smugglers could run thousands of pounds of drugs
through the Yuma Sector checkpoints.

But the vast majority of people getting busted at checkpoints in
Arizona near Yuma aren't smugglers or illegal immigrants. They aren't
even big-shot partiers like Lil Wayne. They're just average people who
happen to be carrying a smidgen of marijuana in their vehicles.

They might never be caught if it weren't for an exception granted the
Border Patrol to set up roadblocks with trained dogs. All the Border
Patrol checkpoints, not just the ones near Yuma, take advantage of
special powers that experts say contradict normal constitutional
search-and-seizure rules.

So many marijuana users have been caught that, last year, Yuma
officials had to streamline the legal process. In a program unique to
the Yuma Sector, Border Patrol agents were given the authority to
write citations in low-quantity marijuana cases as though they were
deputies working for the Yuma County Sheriff's Office.

The program even was anointed with a catchy federal handle: Operation
Citation.

The deputizing of the federal agents means it's easier than ever to
get busted. And the program reflects how busting minor pot users is
what the agents working at the checkpoints -- whose primary mission is
supposed to be stopping illegal human trafficking -- spend much of
their time doing.

A review of 1,052 of the citations issued last year showed that more
than 40 percent were issued to Arizonans, presumably on their way back
from California. Of those, Phoenix and Tucson residents made up the
majority. The rest were split among Californians, 44 percent, and
people from other states. A handful of those cited listed hometowns in
other countries, including Mexico, Spain, England, and Austria.

Most were cited for possessing just a few grams of marijuana, or a
pipe containing marijuana residue. (A gram is about the weight of a
large paper clip).

If there's more than one person in the vehicle and no one admits
ownership of the marijuana, Border Patrol policy dictates that the
citation goes to the driver.

It's not just the number of dogs that makes the Yuma checkpoints so
different. Border Patrol checkpoints just a few miles away near El
Centro, California, including a new one on westbound I-8, also use
dogs. But marijuana laws are far more lax in California, resulting in
far fewer citations and much-less-serious legal problems.

In the unlikely event that you do get busted on your way to San Diego
for a small amount of marijuana at the California-side I-8 checkpoint
west of the state line, you will be hit with nothing more than a $100
fine. In California, possession of an ounce or less of pot is not even
prosecuted as a misdemeanor, it's a base-level "infraction."

But you'd better not risk bringing even a tiny amount of pot back from
the beach -- because nothing demonstrates how differently marijuana
possession is viewed officially by California compared to Arizona than
the checkpoint busts this side of Yuma.

Arizona has the stiffest marijuana laws in the country. Possession of
any amount or of any kind of drug paraphernalia (even a small pipe) is
technically a felony.

Technically, because charges against small-time users are knocked down
to misdemeanors in Yuma County and in other Arizona counties,
including Maricopa. Leniency is one reason -- marijuana isn't
considered as dangerous as other drugs. But it's also true that, if
prosecuted as felonies, the sheer number of marijuana cases would
overwhelm local court systems.

Still, a misdemeanor conviction for pot means that you must pay
hundreds of dollars in fines in Arizona. And, it's not uncommon for
defendants to fork over thousands of dollars in attorney fees trying
to avoid a conviction -- which, for some, means loss of a job or
disqualification for federal financial aid.

The Border Patrol is unapologetic about its right turn toward busting
hordes of minor drug offenders at the Yuma-area checkpoints. In fact,
Jeremy Schappell, spokesman for the Yuma Sector, brags that the agency
practices zero tolerance when it comes to any amount of illegal
substances or paraphernalia.

"If we get just a pipe, they are getting written up," Schappell says.
"If it's a seed, they are getting written up."

Using drug-sniffing dogs at checkpoints to catch small-time marijuana
users probably seems like a smart idea to Americans who view drug use
as morally unacceptable.

However, keeping in mind the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against
unreasonable searches and seizures, judges have traditionally taken a
dim view of such "suspicion-less" stops and searches of vehicles.

After first taking office in 1993, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a former DEA
agent, proposed staking out main roads in and out of Maricopa County
with checkpoints. Then-County Attorney Rick Romley put the kibosh on
Arpaio's idea, saying it was unconstitutional.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down another drug checkpoint
proposal in Indianapolis vs. Edmond. In the landmark case,
Indianapolis police set up roadblocks staffed by dogs and their
handlers, ultimately busting about 50 people with drugs.

The Supreme Court had, in the past, found two major exceptions to its
general disapproval of police checkpoints. In 1990's Michigan Dept. of
State Police vs. Sitz, the High Court allowed DUI checkpoints. And in
1976's United States vs. Martinez-Fuerte, it gave the Border Patrol
the right to set up checkpoints that seek to uncover illegal
immigrants -- with the secondary purpose of finding drugs.

"We have never approved a checkpoint program whose primary purpose was
to detect evidence of ordinary criminal wrongdoing," the Supreme Court
majority wrote in the Indiana case. "The [Indianapolis] checkpoints
violate the Fourth Amendment."

The notion of a checkpoint where police can pull over every single
vehicle and search it chills many Americans. Justice Clarence Thomas,
no beacon of liberal thought, made that clear in his dissenting
opinion in the 2000 case. Though Thomas felt compelled to side with
the Indianapolis police because of court precedents, he challenged the
basis of the precedents strongly.

"I am not convinced that Sitz and Martinez-Fuerte were correctly
decided," Thomas wrote. "Indeed, I rather doubt that the framers of
the Fourth Amendment would have considered 'reasonable' a program of
indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of
wrongdoing."

The new agreement with Yuma County blurs the distinction between drug
and immigration checkpoints.

The Yuma County Sheriff's Office, like all other law enforcement
agencies in the country, cannot legally operate a K9 checkpoint. But
in Yuma County, Border Patrol agents are deputized to write
local-jurisdiction citations -- an end run around long-standing
constitutional protections against stopping motorists without probable
cause.

The Border Patrol takes pains to explain that it's running immigration
checkpoints, with the secondary mission of detecting illegal drugs,
just as the Supreme Court's legal interpretation allows.

Graham Boyd, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Drug Law
Reform Project in Santa Cruz, California, says the procedures at the
Yuma checkpoints are a good example of how increased police powers for
one purpose often end up being used for another. The supposed need for
an immigration checkpoint is "thin justification" for busting every
drug user passing through, he insists.

"Even if somebody has no sympathy for a marijuana user," Boyd says,
"you should still be concerned that the U.S. government is saying the
border is an area where the U.S. Constitution is suspended."

On a recent winter day at the I-8 East checkpoint, two skinny young
Hispanic women are led away in handcuffs. A Department of Public
Safety Officer helps them into his patrol car for a trip to the Yuma
County Jail.

A checkpoint dog found meth in the women's car.

The dogs working the checkpoint that day were Belgian Malinoises,
though the agency also uses German shepherds, Labradors, and other
breeds. They're kept fit and trim -- so lean, in fact, that motorists
often urge the agents to feed them more. It takes about six weeks to
train the dogs to sniff out drugs and people, then another six weeks
to train their handlers, says Wes Burch, the Yuma Sector's K9
coordinator.

To the animals, the work is a fun game of hide and seek. Sometimes,
they can smell drugs from dozens of feet away as they walk along the
queue of slowly rolling vehicles. A dog's body posture changes if it
catches a whiff of drugs, becoming more rigid and focused. Its
breathing quickens. After the vehicle is emptied of visible occupants,
the dog is nearly infallible at finding drugs or people hidden inside.
If drugs don't turn up, it doesn't mean they weren't there earlier. A
Border Patrol K9's sense of smell is so acute, agents say, that it can
tell if someone smoked marijuana in or near a vehicle days before the
checkpoint stop.

When they find drugs, the dogs are rewarded with a small burlap toy
for a few moments. The animals seem to love their job, eagerly
sniffing within inches of vehicles, putting their paws on truck
bumpers, and scanning the air with their snouts.

These days, there are enough trained canines to allow for rotating
shifts. Still, the job is fairly intense for the dogs. They can focus
on their work for only 15 or 20 minutes at a time before needing a
break; their sense of smell is diminished when they become overheated.
Despite the boost in dog teams that has led to increased drug busts,
it's possible to pass through the checkpoints without ever seeing a
dog.

At least three dogs are working on the day New Times visits the I-8
East checkpoint, but the animals rest more than half of the time. Even
when the dogs are ready, sometimes the line of vehicles becomes too
long and has to be "flushed," as the agents put it. All but the most
suspicious autos are waved through quickly. Otherwise, commerce and
the free flow of traffic on the highway would be disrupted, agents
say.

One K9 handler walks far down the shoulder of I-8, using his dog to
sniff out small bags of drugs and paraphernalia often discarded by
approaching drivers or passengers. He finds nothing on this day, but
it's common to find such contraband near the checkpoint, says
Schappell, the federal agency's Yuma spokesman.

Schappell wonders why a Border Patrol sign announcing the checkpoint
about a mile up the road doesn't warn all drug users to dump their
stashes. But he fails to realize that most people have no idea their
vehicles are about to be sniffed by a dog, with major consequences if
the animal smells anything alarming.

The I-8 East checkpoint does have a sign declaring, "Working Dogs
Ahead." But it's next to the checkpoint booth and the dogs, making it
useless as a warning.

A lean, gray Belgian Malinois suddenly appears happier, its attention
focused on a gold Chrysler 300. It tugs firmly at its short, leather
leash, and its handler motions to another agent, who asks the
20-something driver to pull over beneath a shade tent. The young man
sits on a folding chair for a few minutes, looking nervous. As the
Malinois bounces through his car, he leans forward with his head in
his hands.

But the dog finds nothing, and driver is released.

As far as the agents are concerned, a K9 is never wrong: The man must
have had drugs in or around his car recently that left enough
lingering molecules to alert the dog.

To Yuma County, the Border Patrol's dogs look more like geese -- as in
the ones laying golden eggs.

They've brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past few
years. Until a change was made last fall, fines ranged between $750
and $1,400 for the small-time marijuana violators picked up at the
checkpoints. Now, fines usually run $400 -- but that still works out to
be a lot of money considering there have been more than a thousand
cases a year.

And considering that federal agents and their dogs do most of the
work.

Yuma County officials insist it's not about the money. They say it's a
black-and-white issue. Marijuana is illegal.

"It's the law, and we like enforcing the law," says Roger Nelson,
chief deputy Yuma County attorney for criminal matters. "We're not
going to apologize for it, and we don't think there's anything wrong
with having drug-sniffing dogs at an immigration checkpoint."

Though the Border Patrol is a federal agency that's using its
resources to do the work of Yuma County authorities, Schappell says it
"can't turn a blind eye" to the casual users picked up because of the
extra dogs.

The issue of whether the federal Border Patrol officers near Yuma
should be busting small-time drug offenders is a subject made raw over
the recent death of a comrade.

In mid-January, Agent Luis Aguilar was run over in the sand dunes west
of Yuma by a Mexican national driving a Hummer loaded with drugs.

"My opinion is that the grandma coming through with the ounce of
marijuana -- how she got the marijuana is from the Hummer that ran over
Luis Aguilar," Schappell says.

The Yuma Sector's spokesman finds it ironic that media focused far
more on the January 22 arrest of entertainer Lil Wayne, which happened
two days before a memorial service was held for Aguilar. Media calls
poured in from all over the world about the rapper, but reporters
weren't very interested in the dead agent.

Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., was riding in
an RV with 11 friends when a dog targeted his vehicle at the I-8 East
checkpoint. A subsequent search turned up about a quarter-pound of
pot, an ounce of cocaine, 41 grams of Ecstasy, and a handgun.

Interest in what happened to Lil Wayne has been running so high that
the Yuma Superior Court plans to air live coverage of his upcoming
trial (no date for which has been announced) on its Web site.

Another big catch apparently flew under the media's radar: Officials
say that in 2006, a dog at the I-8 East checkpoint hit on the tour bus
of the Crosby, Stills and Nash band, resulting in an arrest for
hashish. It wasn't one of the famous musicians who got nabbed, but a
member of their entourage.

Interestingly (because it would make sense to rationalize the huge
number of minor drug arrests as a means of keeping impaired motorists
off the highway), none of the marijuana users cited at the Yuma Sector
checkpoints was busted for driving under the influence.

The Border Patrol's heightened checkpoint activity played a big role
in boosting the number of misdemeanor cases handled by the Yuma County
Attorney's office from 980 in 2000 to more than 1,500 by 2005.

Then it really got busy. Nelson says his office prosecuted more than
2,500 misdemeanors last year. And that's despite the fact that county
attorneys routinely dismiss as many as 20 percent of the marijuana
cases as too legally tenuous to bother with.

Not surprisingly, Nelson says it was his office that recommended the
partnership between the Border Patrol and the Yuma County Sheriff's
Office, which led to the current arrangement of having the federal
agents write Arizona tickets.

Before Operation Citation, the Border Patrol agents would make a
seizure, then forward the motorist's name to the county attorney's
office. Nelson says prosecutors would be forced to send a registered
letter to each defendant at the cost of $5 or $6 each. And sheriff's
deputies routinely had to schlep out to the Border Patrol stations to
pick up the contraband for evidence, then write a slew of citations.

Now, county officers are no longer faced with the dilemma of either
doing all that work or ignoring the fine-producing cases.

As for the people busted at the checkpoints who talked to New Times,
they are angry that an immigration-enforcement agency caught them in
its lair. They believe it's only natural that they had no idea they
would be detained, because they weren't carrying a secret cargo of
illegal aliens.

"I don't mean to be a conspiracy theory person, but you have to wonder
if we are heading for the same things the Germans went through," says
Mary, the pot-smoking grandmother. "It's only a matter of time before
we see [checkpoints] on I-17 and every other major highway."

"It definitely didn't feel American," a member of a small Texas rock
band says about the I-8 East checkpoint, after receiving a citation in
June. "Our civil liberties are kind of slowly corroding away."

Normally, a police officer is allowed to pull over a motorist only if
a traffic violation (anything from erratic driving to a busted tail
light) is observed. Then, the officer has probable cause to, say,
shine a flashlight into the car to look for illicit drugs.

Though there was no such probable cause in the Yuma County pot cases,
the Border Patrol is exempted from that requirement by the Supreme
Court, as noted earlier in this story.

The busted motorists whom New Times interviewed were particularly
chagrined that a dog wound up leading officers to the pot they had
stashed in their luggage.

"We were stupefied by the whole thing," says a 39-year-old Colorado
mother of two teenagers charged with possessing about four grams of
marijuana. She'd been on a road trip with a friend from Texas to San
Diego, and they'd stopped in Tucson to visit a mutual friend, who gave
them the pot. A highway accident temporarily closed I-8 East,
diverting traffic north from Yuma onto Highway 95 -- right into the
northbound checkpoint where a Border Patrol dog was waiting for them.

"We thought we were going to be thrown in prison or jail or
something," she says. "It was one of the scariest things I've ever
been through."

She later paid $1,600 for an attorney (to avoid having to fly back to
Yuma for a court date) and a $400 fine.

In cases like that of the Colorado woman, leniency figured into the
equation, according to Yuma County prosecutors.

Nelson, the chief deputy county attorney for criminal matters, says
his office prosecutes minor marijuana cases as misdemeanors to provide
"the lenience that we believe these crimes deserve."

Truth is, Yuma County's courts would be swamped if each small-time pot
case were handled as the felony that state law declares it, says Lil
Wayne's Yuma attorney, James Tilson. The county, like most others in
the state these days, is under a major budget crunch.

So, there's a practical reason for dealing with people caught with
small amounts of marijuana quickly and efficiently. Doing it
otherwise, simply doesn't pencil out.

More arrestees would take felony cases to trial. Even with plea
agreements, such cases take a lot more time, money, and effort to prosecute.

On both the financial and human level, "increasing the amount of work
you have doesn't make sense if it's not a serious crime," Tilson says.

Unfortunately for those caught on the Arizona side of the state line,
a misdemeanor still packs a punch. Besides a fine, it also requires
defendants or their lawyers to appear in court, which can get expensive.

Mary, the Phoenix grandma, negotiated a deal in which her misdemeanor
charge was dropped in lieu of a $1,200 drug-treatment class. She paid
a lawyer $3,500 to help make the deal.

The Texas musician paid a lawyer $3,500 just to see a $738 fine
dropped to $400.

Under the current system, an innocent person could easily end up with
a ticket just because a pot user left a surprise in the car.

That's what happened to "Joe," a 48-year-old Peoria man who drove his
wife's car through the checkpoint on his way back from a job in Yuma.
Joe's not a pot smoker and says he fully supports the Border Patrol's
mission.

"My daughter, who's in her 20s, forgot to take her goodies out" of the
car, Joe says. After a dog gave an alert, agents found two used pot
pipes in the trunk.

Rather than place the blame on his daughter, he paid $1,600 in fines,
and was embarrassed recently when the arrest showed up in a background
check while he was trying to rent a house. He was allowed to move in,
but lamented of his new rap sheet: "It just sucks. Period."

The worst part, Joe says, is that he could be fired if his boss ever
found out about the conviction.

Ryan Childers, a criminal defense attorney who worked as a prosecutor
for Imperial County, California, from 2004 to 2006, was surprised to
hear how many checkpoint-related drug cases Yuma County handles.

"What a waste of resources!" the El Centro lawyer says.

In California, Childers explains, possession of an ounce or less of
marijuana rates only a $100 fine and is considered a minor infraction
rather than a misdemeanor. And forget the rhetoric heard in Arizona
that violators would be prosecuted even "if it's a seed." This state's
more liberal neighbor requires a "smokable amount" to prosecute the
infraction, Childers says.

The law against marijuana paraphernalia in California is so lax that
Border Patrol agents in the state who find a pipe or a bong in a
checkpoint search can't do anything other than confiscate it, Childers
says.

There's no checkpoint along the westbound lanes of I-8 in Arizona, but
three months ago, the Border Patrol opened a checkpoint on westbound
I-8 just east of El Centro. The agency's El Centro Sector also
operates permanent checkpoints on California highways 86 and 111.

Minuscule amounts of marijuana are mostly seen as a waste of time for
law enforcement, says Lieutenant George Moreno of the Imperial County
Sheriff's Office.

A sheriff's deputy or a California Highway Patrol officer is obliged
to drive out to the El Centro-area checkpoint if a case is to be made.
Moreno says California law disallows detentions of more than 30
minutes for infractions. So if the amount of pot is just a few grams
and no deputy is near the checkpoint, the sheriff's office doesn't
send anybody out.

"The Border Patrol knows that we don't have the staffing levels, so
they [usually] just let the person go and they destroy the evidence,"
he says.

And because California's medical-marijuana law is liberal, if such
marijuana users show the correct paperwork to the Border Patrol after
getting stopped, their pot is seized and they're sent on their way,
Moreno says.

In the Yuma Sector, low-level busts of people with marijuana are
staving off boredom for Border Patrol agents.

Spokesman Schappell talks almost wistfully of the days when the sector
was hopping with illegal immigrants. Now, agents don't spend much time
chasing down border crossers and hauling in big loads of drugs, he
admits.

On a sunny February day, Schappell cruises a sandy road on the
northern side of the imposing security fence that runs from San Luis
to just past the distant Tinajas Altas Mountains on the horizon. Not a
footprint can be seen for miles in the soft earth.

"Anybody who says a fence doesn't work, I say, 'Come to Yuma,'"
Schappell says.

The number of Border Patrol agents nationally stands at more than
15,000 and is expected to grow to 18,000 by the end of the year. The
push toward greater enforcement against illegal immigrants is gaining
momentum, and agents from Texas to California insist that checkpoints
are a crucial part of the system.

Checkpoints running north from Tucson and ports of entry in New Mexico
and Texas caught the bulk of the nearly 2 million pounds of marijuana,
seven tons of cocaine, and sizable loads of other drugs seized by the
Border Patrol last year.

In the Yuma Sector, though, the agency's mission has changed with
time. Now, it's the small-time drug offender feeling the most heat,
and the illegal immigrants and smugglers -- who are far more aware of
the checkpoints than the average American citizen -- are going elsewhere.

The Border Patrol attributes this to the addition of the 300 new Yuma
Sector agents in three years and to the new fence along the
non-mountainous parts of the sector's 125-mile southern border.

The drop in apprehensions has been the Border Patrol's biggest success
story. In 2006, Yuma Sector agents caught 118,000 people trying to
gain entry into the United States from Mexico. But last year, only
39,000 people were apprehended in the sector.

Rock-throwing by Mexicans south of the border has become more common --
agents believe it's a sign of frustration with the new situation.

Still, most Yuma-area Border Patrol agents are now watching over a
relatively quiet border.

Most of the action takes place at the checkpoints, where agents busy
themselves busting the likes of pot-smoking grandmas and musicians.

Many of the busted marijuana users interviewed by New Times wondered
whether Border Patrol agents had too much time on their hands,
considering that agents expend so much effort to catch people carrying
mostly minuscule amounts of pot. Others wondered whether Operation
Citation was just a clever way to pour money into the Yuma County coffers.

"It's like a toll booth," says a New Mexico man busted for marijuana
possession last year at the I-8 checkpoint with his two sons, in their
20s.

Whatever the frustrations of motorists who like to imbibe in a little
pot, drug-sniffing dogs at the Yuma-area checkpoints are here to stay.

Lloyd Easterling, an assistant chief at the Border Patrol's Washington
headquarters, says the agency is proud of the Yuma Sector's ongoing
effort to nail drug violators.

"Whether it's small-time offenders or much-larger-time smugglers,
those drugs are still coming in and out of the neighborhoods,"
Easterling says. "At some point, the likelihood is that they came
across the border."

In Arizona, a misdemeanor conviction for pot means hundreds of dollars
in fines. It's not uncommon for defendants to fork over thousands of
dollars in attorney fees trying to keep from getting a drug record.

Nothing shows how differently small-time pot possession is viewed in
California compared to Arizona than the checkpoint busts this side of
the state line. Such Border Patrol busts are rarely pursued by
California authorities. When they are, only a small fine is levied.

Of 1,052 people cited for small amounts of marijuana last year at the
checkpoints near Yuma, 40 percent were Arizonans, presumably on their
way back from California. Of these, most were from the Valley.