MassPrivateIBorder Patrol agents at southern Arizona checkpoints routinely violate the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens with illegal searches and other actions despite the agency’s mandate that stops be limited to immigration enforcement, according to a complaint.
The letter from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General seeks an investigation into 12 specific cases and a review of checkpoint policies to determine if agents are complying with constitutional guidelines.
“Border residents regularly experience extended interrogation and detention not related to establishing citizenship, invasive searches, verbal harassment, and physical assault, among other abuses,” ACLU of Arizona attorney James Lyall wrote. “Border Patrol checkpoints often appear to be operated as drug interdiction checkpoints, which are unconstitutional, and not for the limited purpose of verifying residence status.”
Lyall said Border Patrol agents should not be conducting extended stops or searches of vehicles at the checkpoints “for non-immigration purposes, absent ‘reasonable suspicion’ that a crime has been committed.”
Lyall said “But that’s not what’s happening here,” He said the cases provide strong indications that the Border Patrol is using the checkpoints for general crime control, “which the courts have said is not acceptable for a checkpoint.”
“The same thing is happening over and over again to many border residents,” Lyall said. “They’re going on fishing expeditions where there’s no reasonable suspicion.”
The cases cited by the ACLU occurred over the past 15 months at six Arizona checkpoints. One case says an agent pointed a gun at a man’s face during a checkpoint stop when he refused to answer whether he had any weapons in his vehicle.
In another case, the ACLU said three people were detained for 30 minutes after an agent thought backpacks in their vehicle looked suspicious, and the occupants refused to consent to a search of the car. The ACLU said agents have become abusive and even threatening in such circumstances.
While some agents make mistakes, a driver’s behavior can lead to a more prolonged stop, Moran said. “Their argumentative nature might just add to whatever suspicion the agent may have already had,” he said.
The ACLU filed a similar complaint seeking a probe in October, claiming agents were subjecting U.S. citizens to illegal searches, detentions and excessive force in many cases miles from Arizona’s border with Mexico. That complaint came just two weeks after the federal government settled an ACLU lawsuit over similar allegations in Washington state.
While acknowledging no wrongdoing in that case, the Border Patrol agreed to retrain agents and share with advocacy groups records of every traffic stop its agents make in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula along the northern border with Canada for 18 months, among other things.
“Border residents regularly experience extended interrogation and detention not related to establishing citizenship, invasive searches, verbal harassment, and physical assault, among other abuses,” ACLU Arizona attorney James Lyall wrote in an administrative complaint this week to the Department of Homeland Security.
Such altercations between rural residents of Southern Arizona and the Border Patrol come amid a steep drop in apprehensions of illegal migrants by agents assigned to the state. In 2012, Border Patrol apprehensions dropped to 124,631, the lowest level in 19 years and down some 82 percent since their highest point in 2000, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection says.
There are about 5,100 Border Patrol agents currently assigned to Arizona — the most ever. This has led to “unprecedented border security between ports of entry and in remote regions of the Sonoran Desert,” CPB says.
Lyall meanwhile documented a dozen individual altercations that occurred during the last months of 2013 at checkpoints near Arivaca and Tombstone, Ariz., and on the Tohono O’dham Nation southwest of Tucson.
He says the alleged security has come at the expense of rural residents’ basic civil liberties.
“Residents of southern Arizona are increasingly outraged by Border Patrol checkpoints, and for good reason,” Lyall wrote. “Forty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court condoned immigration checkpoints under the assumption that the stops are ‘brief,’ and involve, at most, a ‘limited inquiry into residence status’ and a ‘visual inspection’ of the exterior of the vehicle.”
Agents at the 72 permanent and tactical checkpoints in the southwest, most of them in rural, sparsely populated areas many miles north of the border
“In Arizona, most checkpoints are located in rural areas where local residents are often forced to undergo searches and detentions ranging far beyond ‘limited’ citizenship inquiries and not justified by ‘heavy traffic,'” he wrote. “Border residents – including the many individuals who must pass through checkpoints daily to go to work, run errands, or take children to school-describe feelings of anxiety, fear, and anger after being interrogated, harassed, searched, and/or assaulted by federal agents. These individuals are not ‘waved through the checkpoint without inquiry,” as the Supreme Court envisioned. Each of the motorists described herein was referred for non-routine, unjustified detentions in a secondary inspection area on at least one occasion.”
The frequency of false canine alerts at Border Patrol checkpoints indicates either that canines are frequently unreliable, or that agents are using canines fraudulently in order to obtain probable cause where it does not otherwise exist, or both. Whichever the case may be, the result is that border residents are regularly subject to unconstitutional searches and detentions.”
This is the second complaint about Border Patrol abuses in Arizona that Lyall and the ACLU has submitted to DHS in recent months. A letter in October cited several incidents of “unlawful roving patrols” and racial profiling.
“Unfortunately, the lack of attention by DHS and its agencies to these complaints – involving civil rights abuses by the largest federal law enforcement agency in the nation – is not atypical,” he wrote. “As should by now be clear, the entire DHS complaint process is in dire need of reform, and a broader commitment to Border Patrol oversight, accountability, and transparency is long overdue.”
http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2014/01/16/aclu-arizona-border-patrol-checkpoints-routinely-violate-rights-us-citizens/
http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/01/17/azcheckpoint.pdf
U.S. Customs and Border Protection to hold Citizens Academy:
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Yuma Sector in Arizona, the San Luis Port of Entry, and the Office of Air and Marine have teamed up to launch a free 5-week Citizens Academy program.
According to Supervisory Border Patrol Agent Enrique Zarate of the Yuma Sector Public Affairs Office, the academy is designed to provide area residents and community leaders an inside look into securing the border – at and between the ports – in southwestern Arizona.
This program takes an in depth tour of the border security operations along the Arizona-Mexico border and educates citizens about how law enforcement officials protect and secure the border.
“We are one agency – U.S. Customs and Border Protection – with the mission to secure our border, but with three separate roles,” Zarate said. “We have received a lot of positive feedback about the program from past participants.” (I doubt they asked any of the 100’s of motorists stopped at their illegal checkpoints?)
Zarate said attendees, in becoming familiar with each agency’s distinct roles and responsibilities, will have the opportunity to participate in interactive demonstrations such as defensive tactics, tracking and inspections for prohibited items. There will also be a canine presentation and demonstration.
“Some of these we do on a daily basis while some of it is training we have received,” Zarate said. “We felt it would be beneficial for the community to know about these things.” (What’s beneficial about how they conduct illegal searches & interrogate innocent citizens?)
http://massprivatei.blogspot.com/2014/01/border-patrol-tactical-checkpoints.html
This is how you know the ACLU is a bogus, false-opposition group.
Anyone who is sincerely concerned with the preservation of our constitutional rights knows that we’re well beyond the point of illegal searches lacking “reasonable suspicion”. While this would be an important issue during normal times, the problem at this point has gotten so out-of-control that this only a waste of time.
It’s kind of like the environmental groups that ignore the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, the nuking of the Pacific Ocean, and the wholesale burning of rain forests, but are stark raving mad about you not buying the expensive light bulbs.
Let me guess: As a solution, the ACLU suggests that we all write long letters to our congressmen.
Border Patrol checkpoints in southern Arizona violate the constitutional rights of border residents, ACLU of Arizona demands investigation.
Cases of Border Patrol agent misconduct at checkpoints detailed in the complaint include:
•A Border Patrol agent pointing a gun at a driver, pulling him from his car and detaining him in handcuffs for 45 minutes after the driver declined to answer questions unrelated to citizenship;
•Border Patrol agents detaining a driver and passenger in wire cages for 45 minutes—and searching their car over their objections—after a service dog alerted to an adjacent vehicle;
•Border Patrol agents threatening and assaulting a woman for lawfully attempting to record a search of her vehicle following a false canine alert, upsetting her twin six-year-old children;
•A Border Patrol agent searching a car without consent or probable cause, threatening the driver for objecting to the search, then lying to the driver about his identity;
•Agents detaining three humanitarian aid workers solely for possessing backpacks and giving the aid workers an official Border Patrol card that misrepresents the legal basis for agents’ authority at checkpoints; and
•Border Patrol agents detaining a local resident for over an hour because her car smelled like a skunk and questioning her about her legitimate prescription medication.
http://acluaz.org/issues/search-and-seizure/2014-01/4418
Know Your Rights with Border Patrol:
http://www.acluaz.org/sites/default/files/documents/ACLU%20Border%20Rights%20ENGLISH.pdf