Any detention exceeding the brief stop in which the car occupants are asked about their citizenship, and possibly asked to produce identification, must be based upon consent or probable cause.
So the checkpoint is deemed constitutional. So they can stop you. But you are not required to answer questions like “where are you coming from?” or “where are you going?” or are you an American citizen?" (I suppose you would have to show driver’s license and vehicle registration etc). ’
It seems to me they are just doing a perfunctory “stop all vehicles” so that they can more closely question those people with Mexican appearance.
What would constitute probable cause? I can think of a few things (a truck with fifteen people piled in the back) that might, but I’m not really sure what else would.
Daniel
[Evil German accent]“Papers please!”[/ega]
[quote=“Bricker, post:16, topic:474885”]
It’s unclear to me if the OP is seeking any factual information about the legality of Border Patrol checkpoints.
I’m not sure what I’m looking for, mostly ranting because its so frustrating on so many different levels.
1st) I know these checkpoints are legal, or they wouldn’t be there, but at what point are they stomping all over my basic constitutional rights. That is a question, which I think I have mostly answered, but there is a lot of conflicting information and its been a while since I’ve been in school, and reading through court cases is a pain in the butt.
2nd point of frustration) These checkpoints are ineffective, they are permanent, every coyote, smuggler and illegal knows they are there. That’s why they hike up the railroad tracks on the other side of the river, and everybody knows this.
3rd point of frustration) wasteful, on the highway I’ve been stuck in line for up to 45 minutes. How much fuel is that wasting?? Then when you get up towards the checkpoint there are 13 BP agents standing around with their thumbs firmly lodged up their ass, and one agent asking questions, they can’t be bothered to open a second lane and they have traffic backed up 2 miles.
4th point of frustration) ties in with the 3rd point, that’s my tax money being wasted. Seriously one day 45 minute wait and 13 agents standing around doing nothing, and I have no idea how many were inside their rather large building. Wouldn’t all of those agents be able to more effectively do their job of patrolling the border, if they were ON THE BORDER.
More waste, my shop is about 10 miles north of the checkpoints, one on the backroad, one on the highway. There are Border Patrol vehicles all over the place NORTH of the checkpoints, which are already 50 miles north of the border.
At the beer/gas/cigarette store the other day, north of the checkpoints, 4 BP vehicles and 8 agents.
A couple months back, there was an accident in front of the shop, 7 BP vehicles showed up, 2 agents in each. When the real cops got there, they left, they certainly don’t know how to direct traffic.
So… they didn’t catch them at the border, they didn’t catch them at the checkpoint, so they just drive around far far away from the border doing what??? Wasting huge amounts of tax money and not securing the border.
Very frustrating, even more frustrating knowing that my tax money is getting pissed away so that I can get harassed daily.
Out of fairness, I don’t get harassed everytime. I always say I’m a US citizen because that usually gets you out of there quick. After that I won’t answer a single question, 75% of the time a follow up question is asked, such as where I’m going or where I’m coming from, I’ll just ask if I’m free to go and they say “go ahead”. But that small percentage that take it personally that I won’t answer their questions and go into a spit flying rage, I don’t like that.
Out of fairness to the BP as a whole, anytime an agent has acted that way, I’ve never ever seen them working a checkpoint again.
Questions I’ve been asked before I learned to shut my mouth.
Where you going
Where you coming from
Where do you live
How long have you lived there
Why are you going there
What do you do for a living
Who do you work for
How long have you worked for them
Is this your vehicle
How long have you owned it
Is this spare tire for this vehicle
How long are you going to be there
Whats in the bag/backpack/box etc…
For those of you that have never been through one of these, there are some videos on Youtube. Do a search for CheckpointUSA. That guy won’t even answer if he’s an American citizen, I think its funny since I deal with it all the time. There are some other good ones also.
Hell, I once crossed from an Islamic county into Israel during a time of increased bombing and the checkpoints were only 200 yards from the border. Once past those (which took about 15 minutes) I was free to roam as I wished.
so you’re not really contesting the legality or necessity of such a setup but rather the effectiveness of it vs your convenience?
then i’d agree with you. it’s a waste. it should be reformed, but you can say that about a myriad of other governmental endeavors… i thought you were angry at the idea of internal BP in general.
Based on bubba jr’s post, I question whether the bolded parts of the requirements Bricker posted are being met.
I was stopped at one of these infernal things once, I flashed my passport, he looked at it and started to ask questions. I told him I amply exhibited my american citizenship and he had no further reason to detain me, and if he did not release me that intant I would be finding a lawyer and complaining about illegal detention. That got him to back off immediately.
I have never been through one of these checkpoints but in my ample experience with American authorities at airports they are generally confrontational assholes to a degree I have not experienced in any other country. In other countries they are generally courteous and proffessional but it seems American agents are taught to be as confrontational and rude as possible and they apply it with the zeal and righteousness of those who know they are chosen by God himself to further democracy and the American way of life on Earth.
They rudely demand answers to minor, irrelevant things and later on they will ask the same questions. Over and over. Because they want to trip you by catching you in some minor inconsistency. Then thay get you with 18 U.S.C. Section 1001 for Lying to Government Agents and you’re toast.
I have had them inquire about the stupidest things. “Where are these keys for?” (My apartment.) Over and over. Rudely.
I have been lucky because they could have caught me in some inconsistency but they didn’t. Like when they asked me how much money did I have on me and I answered what I thought was the truth, except that I had a substantially different amount. Luckily they did not check but I would have been in trouble had they found out.
Last time I saw a poor young woman crying as all her clothes were strewn over the long table and a dog walked on them sniffing her underwear. She requested if it was possible that a female agent conduct the search and was told pretty much to shut up. Her boyfriend was waiting outside. They had just come back from enjoying a vacation in Europe. That ought to teach them how dangerous it is to step outside the land of the free.
I have taken to traveling with as little luggage as possible and to never having any information on my computer. I will mail encrypted CD-ROMs ahead or just download encrypted files from a server when I arrive. But I am not going to submit to humiliating questions from $10/hour assholes. Not even if they work for God himself.
The good news is that no asshole will be without a job as long as Homeland Security is hiring.
Carry a dictionary through the checkpoint with dozens of random words highlighted.
Buy a English-Arabic translation book and leave it on the passenger seat. Or maybe just a copy of the Qur’an.
Alternately, tint the windows of your vehicle and carry lots of cash.
If I am asked to “prove” that I am a US citizen right this second, I could not do it, based on the current contents of my purse and wallet. The only pieces of photo ID I currently carry are my CA DL and my Costco card, neither of which identifies me as a US citizen. There is no way on God’s green earth that I will carry my passport on my person, day in and day out- our gov’t has made it a nightmare to replace if lost and I need it for international travel on a fairly regular basis.
WTF?
It is my pasty whiteness that will get me through that checkpoint, not my ID, and that is pathetic and wrong.
Why? They get $10/hour and have nothing better to do all day. I presume you have somewhere you want to get to within the next several hours they could easily take from you.
A California Driver’s License is enough to prove that you are here legally.
If you’re talking about San Onofre, it’s not about agriculture, at least not anymore. it’s about human trafficking. Half the time the checkpoint isn’t even open. They even have signs of a picture of a family running across the freeway to warn you. (When people come to the checkpoint, if it’s open, they try to cross the freeway and go back south with the driver who crosses, and then returns to pick them up.)
They do check for people bringing produce into California from the Arizona border, though.
bubba jr, where is this checkpoint?
New Mexico, one on I-25 that I seldom drive through due to the backups and general assholery, and one on the backroad (hwy 185)that I always take. Those are the only 2 roads going north, unless I wanted to do the overmountain route, but the distance and terrain traveled would be ridiculous.
Okay, so it’s not about US citizenship, only about legal residency. Why might they be asking if folks are US citizens, then? 
And yeah, the San Onofre checkpoint is a joke. It is open perhaps 1 in every 8 times I drive through it, and they never even glance in my big-assed SUV with the tinted back windows, that I could fit a dozen people in. I wonder if it’s because I am a white woman who doesn’t look like a coyote? Probably. I know a nice, respectable, middle-aged white woman, however, who drove a Mexican woman and her children across the border through that exact checkpoint illegally, in order to reunite them with the husband who was working up here. :dubious:
Well I assume they would ask you further questions if you were not a citizen.
They are considerably more dilligent than that in Texas.
What I mean is- if the reason for the stop is to check for legal residency, then ASK ABOUT THAT. Of course, if you just want an excuse to hassle people, then ask about citizenship so that you can then dig deeper with visitors, guest workers, students and the holders of green cards… :rolleyes:
What is stopping every person on that road from saying “Yep- US citizen?” The fear that only white people can answer that way and go unchallenged?
This is just a drive-by post…
Which I can justify because for about ten years (1992-2002), I lived near the Mexican border and had to drive by with these fairly constantly. There was actually a brief period of time (1994ish) when they were shut down. Prior to that, they were informal setups–a simple trailer and some orange traffic cones. Since then, they turned into larger permanent structures.
Anyway, the one I always drove through was about 60 miles north of the border, and about 20 miles south of town. My friends in law enforcement explained to me that although we lived 80 miles north of the border, we lived along the “functional border”, defined as the first major cross-roads, and that thus the “border” wasn’t the river, but the entire zone between the Rio Grande and Highway 90.
Here’s everything that is not from a message board that the internet seems to offer on the subject of “functional border equivalents”: