BORDER CHECKPOINTS DRIVEN CRAZY BY INSPECTIONS

Truckers can wait for hours at the official checkpoint at Benjamin
Hill where authorities routinely stop vehicles to look for illegal
drugs.

A truck filled with chickens pulls into the X-ray inspection system
at Benjamin Hill, about 90 miles south of Nogales, Sonora. The
checkpoint is one of many inspection or toll stops along Highway 15.

Annoyed travelers, truckers and legislators call for a more efficient
process of inspecting vehicles along Mexico's stop-and-go Highway 15.

BENJAMIN HILL, Sonora - They're a symbol of travel in developing
countries: Young men in uniform, carrying rifles almost as long as
the men are tall, manning checkpoints.

As Mexico enters a new political era, they are not going away.
Rather, in the name of the drug war, their numbers have been
increasing, especially near the U.S. border.

In a five-mile stretch of road just south of Nogales, Sonora, there
are two checkpoints, one manned by soldiers, the other by the Federal
Judicial Police. Those are in addition to the checkpoint at Benjamin
Hill, about 90 miles south of Nogales, and the three stops for tolls
that travelers on Mexican Highway 15 encounter between Hermosillo and
the border.

The constant stops cause annoyance and financial losses to travelers
and truckers and have sparked a movement to reform the checkpoint
system. It's an issue that pits against each other two of President
Vicente Fox's commitments: Fighting drug trafficking and reducing the
government's intrusions into everyday life.

For Nogales, Sonora, Mayor Abraham Zaied, the solution is simple.

"I wish they would get rid of them," said Zaied, of the long-ruling
Institutional Revolutionary Party. "All the travelers who go on the
highway wish they would get rid of those checkpoints."

Aside from the practical considerations is the fundamental question
of freedom of movement in Mexico, said Sonoran legislator Fernando
Garcia, of the National Action Party. The legislator said he
sometimes tells officers at checkpoints that he's a merchant, just to
see how they act. He doesn't like their intrusive questions.

"The constitution doesn't permit them to treat you in that manner,"
Garcia said.

Probably no one wishes for change more than truckers. They have
plenty of time to dwell on the delays as they wait in places like
Benjamin Hill, where for 10 months Federal Judicial Police officers
have been using a mobile X-ray machine to search tractor trailers for
drugs.

The X-ray machine, which is used almost exclusively on trucks, has
increased the delays.

"It's a pure waste of time," said Miguel Cortazar, who was driving a
load of blankets from Tlaxcala, just west of Mexico City, to Tijuana.

Over that trip, Cortazar said, he encounters 12 permanent
checkpoints, plus other temporary ones. It turns a three-day trip
into a four-day trip.

"I lose a day waiting," he said. "We need to get to work!"

One and a half hours of Baltazar's additional day were spent
Wednesday at Benjamin Hill, where the line of trucks was almost a
mile long. Cortazar spent the time walking around outside his truck,
talking to other drivers and waiting for the line to move.

This fall, the line has been as long as four miles, and the wait as
long as five hours. But on certain, lucky days, such as Thursday,
there is no line at all.

Drug seizures justify the delays, said Leticia Penunuri, spokeswoman
for the Federal Judicial Police in Hermosillo. So far this year, the
X-ray machine has uncovered about 40 tons of marijuana, she said.

"We're trying to keep the drugs from arriving in the United States," she said.

The success of the X-ray machine has created the need for temporary
checkpoints farther north, she said. Some smugglers move their drug
loads around the X-ray machine but rejoin the highway farther north.

The produce companies whose trucks frequent Mexican Highway 15 don't
necessarily mind being searched, said Lee Frankel, executive director
of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, in Nogales, Ariz.
It's the length of the waits and the intrusiveness of the searches
that can cause problems.

"We don't object if there's an overriding social need," Frankel said.
But, Frankel added, "That disruption should be minimized."

"At the peak of the season, it takes twice as long (for a truck) to
drive that same distance as a passenger car," Frankel said.

The X-ray machine has improved one aspect of the searches, Frankel
said. Officers used to break the seal on some trucks carrying mangoes
and other Mexican produce for export. That meant American inspectors
might reject the truck because of potential exposure to pests.

"If they don't have to physically open the truck, that's better," Frankel said.

Frankel backs the same sort of reforms proposed by Guillermo Padres,
a Mexican congressman from Cananea, Sonora. The most likely reform of
the checkpoint system is to keep most of the checkpoints in place but
make them faster using high technology throughout the system.

That's a proposal Padres expects President Fox to support. Padres
said he discussed the issue with the president - both of them are
National Action Party members - during Fox's visit last week to
Nogales, Sonora.

Fox was visiting to tell Mexican inspectors not to abuse Mexican
residents of the United States during their Christmastime migrations
south.

But Fox is also concerned about mistreatment and delays at the mostly
northbound checkpoints near the border, Padres said.

"He has a deep commitment to combatting drug trafficking," Padres
said. "We have to do those checkpoints, but we have to find a way to
make them more agile."