Incidents of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents asking for the citizenship status of passengers on Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses are terrifying—and not even remotely new. Advocates have condemned reports of immigration agents demanding papers from passengers as far back as the Bush and Obama administrations. What advocates note is new, however, is the frequency at which these questionings are now happening, most recently in Florida. But how, you might ask, does Border Patrol have the authority to do this? Because of an “obscure law” passed by Congress decades ago:
Legislation from 1946 gives agents the authority to search any vehicle near an “external boundary” of the United States, and subsequent regulations defined that area as within 100 air miles of a land or sea boundary. While that may sound like just a sliver of the United States, 9 of the country’s 10 most populated cities lie within the so-called 100-mile zone, and about two-thirds of Americans live inside of it, according to the ACLU. Ninety-seven percent of New Yorkers lived within the area in 2007, and some states, including Florida and Maine, are entirely inside it.
“Within the 100-mile zone,” the American Civil Liberties Union tells Mother Jones, “CBP agents can set up permanent and temporary checkpoints and have some ability to circumvent the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.” And under the mass deportation policies of Donald Trump, unshackled immigration agents are set on taking full advantage of law created by a very white, 1940s-era Congress that never worried about being targeted themselves. Immigrant rights group America’s Voice:
In practice, 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. These problems are compounded by inadequate training for Border Patrol agents, a lack of oversight by CBP and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the consistent failure of CBP to hold agents accountable for abuse. Thus, although the 100-mile border zone is not literally ‘Constitution free,’ the U.S. government frequently acts like it is.
The “100-mile border zone encompasses almost entirely the states of Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont—along with the most populated parts of many others, including California and Illinois,” the group continues. With Trump in control and a Republican Congress that only enables him, lack of oversight could mean vast, horrific consequences for the approximately 200 million Americans—specifically brown Americans—who live in this area.
“In truth,” reported the Miami New Times following the viral video of Border Patrol agents questioning and later detaining an immigrant woman last month, “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.” Mother Jones:
Law enforcement officers typically aren’t allowed to stop someone unless they have reasonable suspicion. But, if it’s at a checkpoint, CBP says it can get around those restrictions. In an email to Mother Jones, an agency spokesman cited two high-court rulings that he said give CBP the right to conduct these sorts of immigration stops. A 1976 Supreme Court case gave agents the right to inquire about citizenship at permanent checkpoints, and a later decision found there wasn’t a substantial difference between a temporary and permanent checkpoint.
Civil liberties organizations dispute CBP’s conclusion that they can treat places like a bus station within the 100-mile zone as a checkpoint, which is why many, including the ACLU, have voiced concern over the recent stops. Michael Price, senior counsel in the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the government’s reasoning gives “Customs and Border Protection officers an extraordinary amount of power to stop people for no reason at all.”
This isn’t the first time the agency has used this power. In 2010, the New York Times reported that Border Patrol agents routinely asked riders on Amtrak trains in upstate New York for documentation. A year later, a New York Civil Liberties Union study showed that Border Patrol agents frequently boarded trains and buses miles away from the border in central and western New York, where they detained passengers who could not prove their legal residency in the United States. (In Obama’s second term, Rickerd noted, the Department of Homeland Security directed federal agents to focus on deporting people who had committed crimes, which led to a decrease in stops—at least in places like upstate New York.)
“The roundups are getting worse,” tweeted Angus Johnston, a City University of New York professor, following the Greyhound video. “The checkpoints are getting worse. The harassment is getting worse. The things we were worried would happen are happening.” But especially for southern border area residents, it’s been a reality for a long time. And confusion regarding rights only benefits agents intent on sweeping up as many people as possible. But remember, everyone in the U.S., regardless of their immigration status and who is tweeting from the White House, has basic rights. Anyone who insists otherwise is lying:
- Everyone has a right to photograph police and Border Patrol in public spaces. Enforcement officers may not confiscate or demand to view your digital photographs or video without a warrant, and may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.
- Border Patrol agents cannot pull anyone over without “reasonable suspicion” of an immigration violation or crime.
- Border Patrol agents cannot conduct vehicle searches without a warrant or probable cause. Agents may request consent to search your vehicle, but you are not required to allow them.
- Border Patrol agents are not allowed to racially profile individuals whom they suspect may be in the U.S. without documentation.
“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.”
