Unshackled mass deportation agents are standing by the actions from a viral video released by an immigrant rights organization, showing Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents boarding a Greyhound bus in Florida to demand proof of citizenship from all onboard. As alarmed passengers watched, the agents questioned and detained a black woman of Caribbean descent who, according to The Washington Post, was eventually “transported to a Border Patrol station for questioning and turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for removal proceedings”:
As a Greyhound bus pulled up to a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., station on Friday afternoon, en route from Orlando to Miami, the driver announced there would be a “routine” security checkpoint.
Two uniformed officers boarded the bus and introduced themselves as Border Patrol agents, passengers told the Florida Immigrant Coalition, an advocacy group. The officers made their way down the center aisle, row by row, questioning passengers. They instructed each person to present “a U.S. identification or a passport with a stamp of entrance,” one passenger, Raquel Quesada, told CBS4.
From the back of the bus, passengers began filming the scene on their cellphones, quietly discussing what was happening in front of them. “This is new?” one woman is heard asking another passenger on the video, which was shared on Twitter by the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
About halfway down the aisle, the officers stopped to question a woman of Caribbean descent: “Do you have luggage?” He pulled a red roller suitcase from the overhead bin. “This is yours?” he asked. Then the two officers escorted the woman off the bus.
Border Patrol later said that the woman was present in the U.S. on an expired visa, but this is no less the stuff of fascist dictatorships. None of this is remotely new, with the Miami Herald warning in 2011 “that Greyhound buses were becoming dangerous territory for undocumented residents.” What is new, is mass deportation agents becoming emboldened, and more immigrants—including Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients—becoming vulnerable to deportation. This is just part of the new, terrifying reality of immigrant life in America under Donald Trump.
“In truth,” reports the Miami New Times, “Greyhound has long been a favored target of federal immigration officials. The relatively inexpensive buses are often the only reliable and affordable means of transit for poor working immigrants.” The detained woman’s story, along with another of a detained Washington state man last year, “raise the question of why Greyhound allows CBP agents to grill its passengers … FLIC says the bus line has argued it has no choice because federal immigration agents claim jurisdiction anywhere within 100 miles of a border.” The Washington Post:
The American Civil Liberties Union notes that immigration authorities cannot pull anyone over without “reasonable suspicion” of an immigration violation or crime. Nor can they search vehicles without a warrant or probable cause that an immigration violation or crime has likely occurred. The ACLU argues that Border Patrol agents “routinely ignore or misunderstand the limits of their legal authority in the course of individual stops, resulting in violations of the constitutional rights of innocent people.”
Angus Johnston, a City University of New York professor, tweeted the video of the Greyhound bus inspection along with a warning.
“If you’re documented and don’t have any warrants, the time to think about whether and how you’d refuse to comply with such requests is now,” Johnston said. “The roundups are getting worse. The checkpoints are getting worse. The harassment is getting worse. The things we were worried would happen are happening.”
“Incidents like these erode public trust in police and authority figures whose job is to serve and protect our communities,” said FLIC, which has been in contact with the detained woman’s family. “Without an official, judicial warrant border patrol agents should not be permitted to board the private property of the Greyhound corporation to harass its customers with questions transgress their civil liberties. The people of Florida deserve to ride their local bus transportation in peace without having to carry a birth certificate or passport to go to Disney world, visit family, or commute for work.”
But there’s a difference between what agents are supposed to be doing and what they’re actually doing, and they’ve shown themselves to be perfectly willing to cast aside even basic human decency in their effort to ramp up Trump’s racist mass deportation agenda. “My mother-in-law came to visit me last week. She’s my daughter’s grandmother and this was the first time meeting each other,” said her daughter-in-law. “I dropped her off at the Greyhound bus stop Friday morning and never got word of her arrival. I’m very concerned about these officers questioning her without a lawyer present.”
Immigrant rights group America’s Voice: “If a Border Patrol agent asks for your ID, you have a right to refuse. You may ask if you are free to go. The only way they can say no is if you are being arrested. For that, they need probable cause.” More important information regarding your rights if confronted by a federal immigration agents is available here.