Though inspired by current events, such as the recent open letter being discussed in QZ, this isn’t necessarily limited to such. Assume there’s a really really good reason why it needs to happen. (And yes, I asked this in GQ, but the enforcement issue kind of got put aside to an extent in favor of the legal, so I thought I’d concentrate solely on the practical.)
Would local police be required to serve at every major border crossing? Every border crossing? Does the military need to get involved? What penalties would be issued for breaking the ban? For not enforcing it? Would large trucks automatically be let through on the assumption that they’re hauling needed goods? If an essential worker works in one state but lives in another, who checks to make sure they’re on the level? These are the major questions that came to mind, but feel free to tack more on.
Obviously, some states have it a lot easier than others, but let’s generally stick to the continental US for this.
State border closures are happening in a number of areas of Australia right now. They’re enforced by the police, and a permit system with various potential reasons for travelling. I doubt if the police have checkpoints at every little country road 24 hours a day … however, driving too far interstate with the wrong state’s plates on your car would be a pretty obvious red flag to local law enforcement. I don’t think the military has been called in for this task, though they have for some others (for instance, mass testing in the current Melbourne spike)
People have been filmed (or even filmed themselves ) blowing through checkpoints with no excuse - the police just note down their number-plate and send them out a great big fine in the mail later.
It’s not great for border communities ( example ). I don’t know if it would be even possible with a huge metropolis edging into two states. If you had some time to plan for such a thing, it would make more sense to draw ‘catchment areas’ around major urban centers, in high-population parts of the country.
The state should just announce the ban along with the massive fines, forfeiture of vehicle, mandatory jail time, responsibility to pay expenses for anyone contracting COVID, etc for anyone caught violating the order.
If, during a routine traffic stop, someone is found to be in violation, off to a crowded jail with you!
I would assume the little roads would be blocked off, at first by big ass trucks like sanitation, later with jersey barriers or dumping a load of dirt or gravel or anything that could block it off. Passage between would be funneled though a few pinch points.
NY Governor Cuomo made this statement about the enforcement of interstate travel restrictions: “If you go to a hotel and a hotel clerk asks why you are not on quarantine, if you go to a business meeting and someone says, ‘Aren’t you supposed to be on quarantine?’ If you are stopped by a police officer who says, ‘You are driving a car from Florida, weren’t you supposed to be in quarantine 14 days?,’ any of those mechanisms you can be detected as violating your quarantine.”
The penalties for violating the quarantine order are a $10,000 fine and a judicial order placing you under quarantine.
There’s really no point in setting up border checkpoints in New York. The quarantine order doesn’t effect any state which shares a border with New York. It’s mainly intended for incoming flights. I suppose somebody could drive up from a designated state but presumably they would be questioned by the intervening states.
I’d expect it to come under local law enforcement, with major road routes being monitored. Other forms of travel (rail, air, sea) could be monitored at the point of ticket purchase so that any ticket purchased for interstate travel would have to be justified, potentially with an official document stating why someone needs to travel to a particular place.
Smaller roads are going to be an issue, I expect the most determined traveller would find a detour the long way round to get to where they wanted to be. I did wonder whether it’s something that could be a function of ANPR to recognise out-of-state plates. Obviously that wouldn’t work here in the UK because we don’t have locally-badged plates.
It strikes me as something that could be enforced by various means in some places, but equally there will be areas where it’s not possible to enforce or there are insufficient local law enforcement bodies to do an adequate job.
They are coming ‘up’ from other states in droves. I have seen so many out of state licence plates and from more states then before. American’s have the road like never before.
I don’t think this would work. As an example, here in New York there’s an executive order affected travelers from Florida. But I don’t see how we could expect it to be enforced in Florida airports (even if they wished to). It’s an executive order signed by the Governor of New York; it would have no legal authority in Florida. This is just another issue where the federal government should be stepping up.
Another factor is that it’s wrong to call this a travel ban. People from Florida are not banned from traveling to New York. The executive order only requires that they remain in quarantine for fourteen days after arriving in New York. If you’re willing to do this, you can legally travel to New York from any of the high-risk states.
This means there’s nothing to enforce in Florida on a person traveling to New York. Their compliance or non-compliance won’t occur until they arrive in New York.
This question reminded me of Brexit, specifically the talk of possibly having to set up customs checkpoints on the boarder between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. According to our Irish tour guide when I was in Europe last summer, a problem with that was that there are lots of small, windy, country roads that literally cross back and forth over the boarder multiple times. So bringing it back to this discussion, it wouldn’t not surprise me if there were small roads in some parts of the US that do the same thing, which would create the same problems with setting up checkpoints.
No, thank you. Interstate travel bans are stupid and useless, and don’t want to give the Feds any experience in this area at all.
Enforce the mask and social distancing rules, give them some teeth, in your own jurisdiction, and you don’t have to worry about whether any individual is local or not. It’s not like some locations are somehow more pure than others.
Pretty much EVERY state border has those twisty, windy roads and flung over a very large area, particularly as you go west.
Hell, you can wind up crossing a US state border by accident. I live and work near one and people literally forget which state they might be in at a particular moment. We have to deal with this on a regular basis due to changes in state laws - on one side of the border you can’t buy alcohol until noon on Sunday or purchase a car at all that day of the week, on the other you can buy both all Sunday. Marijuana is legal on one side of the line, illegal on the other. Fireworks laws, gun laws… the list goes on.
As travel between states has never been impeded there is absolutely no mechanism in place for doing so and indeed there is much to make such a ban nigh impossible to really enforce.
The answer is closing all of those little roads to traffic with a few portable bollards and some scary signs. Somebody willing to risk the fines or jail time can probably cross unimpeded, but that’s the same for most crimes.
) blowing through checkpoints with no excuse - the police just note down their number-plate and send them out a great big fine in the mail later.