If passengers feel targeted by federal immigration officials while riding a Greyhound bus, it’s because they have been. NBC News reports that the American Civil Liberties Union obtained a November 2017 email from a Border Patrol official letting agents loose to search buses for immigrants, telling them, "Happy hunting, stay safe, and have fun!"
“Policies imposed during the Obama administration from 2010 to 2012 restricted when the checks could occur, requiring clear intelligence about smuggling or other criminal activity and approval from Border Patrol headquarters,” NBC News continues. “But when the Trump administration dropped the headquarters requirement, the news was met with enthusiasm from some agents.”
Border Patrol has always felt in the right to harass Greyhound passengers, citing an “obscure law” that they believe gives them the right to demand to see the papers of anyone within 100 miles of a border. Now, under Donald Trump, federal immigration agents have been fully unleashed—and they know it, because the agent writing the email called new changes “an excellent opportunity, the likes of which we have not seen in a decade.”
So what kind of shenanigans have they been pulling since then? Oh, things like harassing a stand-up comic who was returning home to Oregon from a gig in Washington. Mohanad Elshieky said he “explained to them that I was granted asylum here in the United States,” showing the agents his Oregon driver’s license and work authorization card. “They told me that I was lying and these could pretty much be falsified.” The ordeal ended only after Elshieky threatened to call his lawyer on them.
The agency has been pulling this shit for years, stopping one Latino man waiting for a Greyhound bus in Indio, California, because his “shoes looked suspicious,” like they'd belong to a recent border-crosser, according to an ACLU attorney. ”What Greyhound and its passengers need to know is that there is no legal requirement for the company to let Border Patrol board its buses,” the ACLU stated.
”Both Greyhound and former DHS officials have criticized the practice, with the bus line expressing frustration about it to Congress,” NBC News reports. “But Border Patrol views its ability to board trains, buses and other transport dozens of miles from the border as crucial in its fight against smuggling and terrorism.” And against stand-up comics and people with worn shoes, apparently.