The wife and a friend of former Arizona Gov. Raul Castro are calling for changes in Border Patrol procedures after agents recently detained the frail 96-year-old in 100-degree heat for more than a half-hour.

Castro said he was traveling from his home in Nogales, Ariz., to celebrate his 96th birthday in Tucson when his vehicle triggered a radiation sensor at the Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 19 north of Tubac.

Castro said agents sent him to another inspection area and continued to question him outside his vehicle for 40 to 45 minutes even though he explained that he had undergone hospital testing on his pacemaker the previous day, likely triggering the sensor.

Castro has downplayed the June 12 incident, which occurred just before noon. His wife and driver, however, were appalled.

"It's traumatic, to say the least, for an old man," said Castro's wife, Patricia.

She said the Border Patrol officials need to use "more common sense" when they encounter elderly people who have undergone medical procedures.

Anne Doan, a family friend from Nogales who was driving Castro to the birthday luncheon in Tucson, wrote a letter to the Nogales International newspaper recounting the incident and blasting the Border Patrol for its treatment of Castro.

"I felt the agents had no regard for the governor's background or age or physical condition," Doan wrote. "I was embarrassed as I watched the governor being needlessly treated like a nuclear threat."

In the letter, Doan said that after Castro was sent to a secondary inspection, the former governor was told to stand under a tent. He was wearing a suit, and the temperature was 100 degrees, but agents refused Doan's request to let Castro remain in the air-conditioned car, she said. "The agents said (they) could not and that they had a fan under the tent," she wrote.

After being asked to sign documents, they let Castro leave, she said.

"I feel less safe knowing that time and money is being wasted by agents who must check a box or file a paper knowing full well that there is no threat," Doan wrote.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials confirmed in an e-mail that they stopped Castro on June 12 for "a possible trace of radiation." Policy requires agents to "identify and resolve all sources of radiation regardless of the circumstances," which officials did in this case, according to the statement. Conflicting with the account of Castro and his companions, officials say Castro was "delayed" only 10 minutes, from 11:42 a.m. to 11:52 a.m.

The Mexican-born Castro was governor of Arizona from 1974 to 1977. He was the state's first and only Hispanic governor. He and his wife retired to Nogales after he served as U.S. ambassador to Argentina. He also served as ambassador to Bolivia and El Salvador in the 1960s.

In an interview, Castro told The Republic that he was "not thrilled" by the way he was treated but did not file a complaint. He said that he understands Border Patrol agents are "there to do a job" but that they need a better system for dealing with elderly people. He said he was exposed to the sun during part of the questioning. "The sun was blazing on me," he said.

"Once I identified myself, who I was, and that I had been to the doctor, I was under medical care, I have a pacemaker on my heart, (I would have thought) that they would have been more considerate and said, 'Keep on going.' But that didn't happen," Castro said.

Alessandra Soler, executive director of the American Civil Liberties of Arizona, said Castro's experience with agents was not unique.

"This happens all the time in terms of these types of indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of any wrongdoing," Soler said.

She said agents should have used discretion instead of relying solely on technology to decide to detain Castro.

"I think most people would agree that subjecting a 96-year-old man to secondary screening does little to secure our borders and a man who had just informed them that he had undergone this medical procedure," she said.