NH Immigration Checkpoint Nets 5 For Deportation

WOODSTOCK, NH — Five illegal immigrants were arrested at a New Hampshire immigration checkpoint on Interstate 93 this weekend, officials said. The immigrants are from Brazil, China, Ecuador, El Salvador and Mexico and all are set to be deported. The checkpoint was held in Woodstock on the southbound side of the highway about 100 miles from the Canadian border. It was the third immigration checkpoint held in North New Hampshire over the last year.

Officials said agents also seized drugs including marijuana, marijuana edibles and marijuana-infused vape oil from motorists.

"Checkpoint operations are a critical enforcement tool for the enforcement of our immigration laws and are a part of our defense in depth strategy," customs Agent Robert Garcia said in a statement. "In addition to technology, manpower and intelligence, checkpoints help to deny access to major routes of egress away from the border and into our communities in the interior of the U.S."

A man who went through the checkpoint called it a "stupid waste of time" in a tweet.

I-93 is one of New Hampshire's major highways on the route to and from Canada.

Congressional candidate Justin O'Donnell shared a Facebook Live video (shown below) as he drove through the checkpoint. The video shows O'Donnell declining to answer some of the border patrol agents' questions and objecting to the checkpoint because it was "nowhere near" the Canadian border. A border agent disagreed.

"I don't know if you're a citizen," the agent tells O'Donnell. "I don't know if you're a terrorist."

O'Donnell was eventually allowed to drive off.

A New Hampshire judge in May declared such checkpoints unconstitutional, though that has not deterred federal authorities from continuing to conduct them.

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire called the Woodstock checkpoint "an embarrassment to our state" that "violated the Fourth Amendment" regarding unreasonable search and seizure.

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• Immigration Checkpoint On Major New Hampshire Highway
• NH Border Patrol Checkpoint Nets 25 Illegal Aliens: Authorities

Video warning: some graphic language

Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection conducts an immigration checkpoint on Interstate 93 in New Hampshire in May 2018. (Credit: U.S. Customs and Border Protection)