America borders two foreign countries, Mexico and Canada, our immigration by far is almost entirely concerned with protecting our southern border, because of the high illegal immigration of Mexican or other Latin American residents into America. While I don't have a big issue with border checkpoints as a somewhat necessary mandate to secure the integrity of our borders, I do have a significant problem and a major concern with "interior border" checkpoints which are located in the states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas. If you are not from those states or have never traveled by automobile through those states, I will use San Clemente in California as our example.
The San Clemente interior border checkpoint resides for traffic traveling north on I-5 and is approximately 65 miles north of the border to Mexico. I-5 is a major artery to travel from the San Diego area to Los Angeles and having an interior border checkpoint on a freeway is a significant contributor to vehicle backups that can stretch for miles which is both an inconvenience for people traveling on the freeway but also a great inefficiency in time usage for people that are simply trying to get from point A to point B.
The ostensible reason for the checkpoint is to interdict illegal aliens, in which, by virtue that we border Mexico, they are primarily looking for people that fit that particular racial profile. This means, almost by definition, that if you are Caucasian, and respectful looking, and/or have a nice vehicle, you won't ever be hassled, in which by a simple visual inspection that you are Caucasian the border agents will simply wave you through without you even having to come to a complete stop, or at worse, you might get the "Are you a US Citizen", and if you answer in the affirmative, you will more than likely again easily pass through.
To a certain extent, if you are Caucasian, or a member of some other nationality that does not correlate to their profile of a Mexican, or a terrorist, you might even look upon this border stop as a joke, but it is a nuisance, it is an inconvenience, and it is a mandated slowing down or stopping, and having to deal with an armed United States Federal agent when you are already well within the United States border and simply driving your vehicle on a freeway.
Of course, the above is mainly the perspective of someone that has nothing to fear, because you don't fit the profile, unfortunately, there are plenty of people that do have something to fear because they fit the profile and consequently they have to deal with this each and every time that the interior border checkpoint is open. This means that they are being profiled and hassled, merely because they look or act or drive a certain way. That isn't fair and it isn't right, but law enforcement will state again and again ad nauseam how effective it Is because they caught this guy trying to traffic drugs, or this dangerous criminal, or that illegal alien….
But, the thing is, that statement is virtually meaningless. If you pull everyone over, you will catch criminals, you will catch illegal aliens, you will catch the trafficking of drugs; what you won't have any more is America, you will have just another police-state.