UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. Guillermo RODRIGUEZ-MARTINEZ and Auscension Rodriguez-De Leon, Defendants-Appellants.Mind you, this is 1979 and technology has improved a
little since then...
Information transmitted by intrusion devices called sensors indicated that the vehicle was coming from an uncontrolled area of the Texas-Mexico border at a rate of speed considered rapid for the road surface and terrain.
There are three points of entry from Mexico along this isolated stretch of the border: Ruidosa, Candelaria and Presidio. Ruidosa and Candelaria are unmanned Class B ports of entry, actually fords of the Rio Grande River, with no permanent Border Patrol personnel stationed in either village. Presidio is the only Class A, continuously-manned, port of entry into the area with a bridge crossing of the Rio Grande River.
The terrain, the availability of unmanned entry points, the normal traffic pattern and the high incidence of alien arrests create a strong reason to believe that non-local vehicles traveling north on FM 2810 from Pinto Canyon Road may contain illegal aliens. To assist in controlling the area, the Border Patrol has installed intrusion devices to alert it to northbound traffic coming from Pinto Canyon Road. There are four such sensors: two on the unpaved Pinto Canyon Road within 14 to 19 miles of the border, one immediately north of the end of Pinto Canyon Road, and the fourth further north on the paved portion of FM 2810. The activation of these devices provides the Border Patrol officers with the date, time and location of the intrusion and enables the officers to detect the direction of travel, speed, and the number of vehicles. With this information the officers are able to calculate an intercept point. When the intercept is effected, if the officers recognize the vehicle or driver the vehicle is waved on without inquiry. If this recognition does not occur, the vehicle is stopped and the inquiry as to citizenship is made.
2810 forms one side of a roughly shaped triangular area with Marfa at its apex and the Rio Grande River at its base, running southwest from its origin in Marfa for approximately 54 miles to Ruidosa, Texas, a Mexican bordertown of less than 100 people. FM 2810 is paved for 32 miles and then deteriorates into a poorly maintained, rough, rocky, dirt road known as Pinto Canyon Road for the last 22 miles into Ruidosa. (The evidence in Lujan-Miranda reflected the paved portion was then only 30 miles. The inexorable march of progress obviously continues.) Because of the extremely difficult, mountainous terrain of the unpaved portion of FM 2810, vehicles can safely attain a maximum speed of only 30-40 miles per hour, and in some places must slow to a walk. Pinto Canyon Road is typically traveled by pickup trucks or four-wheel drive vehicles.
