DANA POINT : Council to Discuss Checkpoint Change
The City Council on Monday will discuss the proposed relocation of the San Onofre border checkpoint station--an issue that has long concerned Dana Point’s neighboring city of San Clemente.
An item on the council’s agenda calls for discussion and passage of a resolution urging Congress to appropriate money for a new checkpoint station about five miles farther south in San Diego County than the existing checkpoint.
San Clemente city officials have for years called for moving the checkpoint. They have said that the existing station, only four miles south of San Clemente, results in too many chases winding up in the city.
U.S. Border Patrol agents, who operate the station, sometimes have to chase cars and trucks of illegal immigrants who try to flee from the checkpoint. San Clemente Mayor Brian J. Rice has said these chases are a potential “time bomb” that threatens the lives of civilian residents in San Clemente and the rest of south Orange County.
The federal Immigration and Naturalization Service first proposed a relocated station three years ago.
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