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Award Winning Sci-Fi Writer Physically Assaulted By DHS Agents At U.S. Border

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WattsStarfish

I noticed an increase in network traffic to the blog recently so took a closer look. What I discovered was that Peter Watts, an award-winning Canadian science fiction writer, was recently roughed up close to the Canadian border by U.S. homeland security goons with Customs and Border Protection.

It appears that Mr Watts was attempting to return to Canada via the Blue Water Bridge in Michigan when he was selected by Customs and Border ‘Protection’ agents for extra special attention in the form of a random vehicle search prior to leaving the country. That’s right, Mr. Watts wasn’t attempting to enter the United States. He was attempting to leave.

I’ve written about this asinine Homeland Security policy before as it applies to the Southern border but didn’t realize it had been extended to the Northern border as well. Neither did Mr. Watts from the sound of it who repeatedly asked what was going on and why was he being stopped and searched after exiting his vehicle.

The ego’s of the CBP agents obviously felt threatened by a mere mortal asking questions and not being sufficiently submissive. Consequently, they did what arrogant, overly-aggressive unaccountable federal agents usually do under such circumstances. They physically attacked Mr. Watts for daring to question their authoritah. After they were done beating him, they turned him over to local authorities who then arrested and charged him with assaulting a police officer. It should be noted, nothing illegal was found during the search, if one doesn’t include the beating that is.

You’d think Customs and Border Protection agents would be spending more time attempting to increase their abysmally low interdiction rate for illegal contraband coming into the country rather than harassing individuals trying to leave or worse yet, no where near a border. Obviously such quaint notions of effectiveness and legitimacy play little role in modern day homeland security policies and practices however.

What’s interesting to note here, assuming the reports I’ve read are accurate, is that the federal agents turned him over to local law enforcement. This is suspicious because federal agents are not considered state police officers in most circumstances and state laws governing the alleged assault of a police officer don’t normally cover federal agents. This is especially true given the fact that there are federal laws making it a crime to assault a federal agent.

Why then was Mr. Watts not arrested and charged federally if he did indeed physically assault a federal agent? Does anyone really think the federal government wouldn’t jump at the opportunity to prosecute someone who had clearly assaulted one of its own in the performance of his or her duties?

My guess is that the federal agents involved in the beat-down know that whatever Mr. Watts did, it didn’t rise to the level of assault. They probably also know that if they tried to charge him with assault themselves, the federal prosecutor would either refuse to take the case or a federal judge would laugh it out of federal district court. A federal prosecution would also place a much brighter light on their own actions during the incident, a light that could have a detrimental effect on their own careers if it wasn’t directed at just the right angle.

By turning the case over to local authorities, the federal agents absolve themselves of any direct responsibility for a malicious prosecution and they get the state to do their dirty work for them. State and local agencies are more than willing to go along with the charade because the Department of Homeland Security routinely doles out millions of dollars in bribes to local jurisdictions in the form of Homeland Security grants.

Assuming that Mr. Watts is indeed being charged at the state or local level, his legal team should look into whether or not the Michigan state statute(s) he’s being charged with violating applies to federal agents. In other words, does Michigan state law explicitly define, under these circumstances, that the agents involved in this fiasco were state police officers. If not, the charges against Mr. Watts must be dismissed. Additionally, a 2007 copy of the Customs and Border Protection Field Manual is available here. This could be useful for comparing Mr. Watt’s treatment at the hands of these agents to policies and procedures they are supposed to be following. Note – a newer version of the manual may be in effect.

While Michigan state law may have such a provision, I know that in Arizona that’s not the case. A federal agent must be explicitly cross-certified to enforce state law by the county sheriff where he’s working in order for such state-level coverage to exist. This certification must be renewed on a yearly basis and all such cross-certified federal agents must be registered by the county sheriff with the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board. I’d be surprised if there weren’t similar provisions present in Michigan law.

For more information regarding this incident, I’ve compiled several links below:


More Border Patrol Harassment at Internal Immigration Checkpoints

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Update: 17FEB2011 - YouTube has once again removed the video for unknown reasons. Most likely because Border Patrol agents don't like being held accountable in a public forum. We'll see what we can do to remedy that situation...

Update: 17DEC2010 - Looks like the video has been reposted. I've updated the embedded link accordingly.

[Update: 25OCT2010 - Looks like Youtube & the Border Patrol are busy censoring videos again. The videographer reported Youtube banned the video depicted in this blog entry without explanation. A similar incident occurred to 3 of my videos a while back. See here for details.]

The checkpoint depicted in the video above is the interim checkpoint located near kilometer post 45 on I-19 in Southern Arizona and championed by Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona’s 8th District. Like so many other Border Patrol checkpoint encounters, the video above documents harassment of the traveling public by agents who take advantage of their limited authority in an attempt to intimidate individuals into waiving their fundamental rights.

The videographer from above has been featured on this blog before. For background information, see:

As can be seen in the video above, the driver affirmatively states his citizenship when first entering the checkpoint. Not satisfied with merely ascertaining citizenship, the agent asks the driver to pop the trunk so he can search inside. The driver exercises his rights by refusing the search which prompts the agent to ask him who he works for. The driver rightfully refuses to answer the question (which has nothing to do with a determination of immigration status anyway) which results in the agent referring the driver to secondary inspection.

The driver asks if he’s being detained and the agent says no but refuses to allow him to go on his way. This of course means the driver is in fact being detained which means the agent lied to the driver creating an unsafe situation for all parties concerned.

The extended detention is also illegal according to the U.S. Supreme Court which has clearly stated over the years that any further detention or searching at internal immigration checkpoints after the initial immigration question must be premised on consent or probable cause:

“…We have held that checkpoint searches are constitutional only if justified by consent or probable cause to search….And our holding today is limited to the type of stops described in this opinion. -‘[A]ny further detention…must be based on consent or probable cause.’U.S. v Martinez-Fuerte

This ruling is probably one of the reasons why Border Patrol agents lie at these checkpoints when someone asks them whether or not they’re being detained after being directed to secondary inspection. The agent wants to be able to claim on a report or in court that he verbally told the individual he wasn’t being detained which would tend to create the illusion that the driver voluntarily agreed to an extended detention by moving to secondary of his own free will. Further questioning of the agent by the driver reveals the lie however when the agent makes it clear he’s not free to leave when explicitly asked.

Some folks will claim the Supreme Court allows agents to divert any vehicle to secondary for any reason per U.S. v Martinez-Fuerte. What they fail to recognize is that the court only authorized such referrals absent consent or probable cause when the traffic is too heavy to make immigration queries of everyone stopped at primary. In this case, the agent asked the driver his citizenship status at primary and only diverted the driver to secondary when the individual refused the trunk search. A refusal that is perfectly legal in the absence of consent or probable cause:

“The defendants arrested at the San Clemente checkpoint suggest that its operation involves a significant extra element of intrusiveness in that only a small percentage of cars are referred to the secondary inspection area, thereby “stigmatizing” those diverted and reducing the assurances provided by equal treatment of all motorists. We think defendants overstate the consequences. Referrals are made for the sole purpose of conducting a routine and limited inquiry into residence status that cannot feasibly be made of every motorist where the traffic is heavy.”

My appreciation goes out to the driver for his willingness to put himself in harms way by asserting his rights on American soil and exposing Border Patrol attempts to coerce individuals into allowing searches and extended detentions absent informed consent or probable cause.

These abuses will continue until a critical mass of individuals refuse to allow themselves to be bullied by federal agents who should be serving and protecting us as opposed to attempting to dominate and control us.

Regarding this point, I thought the following email I received a while back would be appropriate here:

“Ok, I am employed by the Department of Defense, broad I know, and as such I am an Antiterrorism and Enforcement Specialist. I’m sure you can piece together the course and scope of my duties, lol!

A few years back, I was assigned to assist in the training of Customs and Border Protection officers at key checkpoints here in the states. I don’t mean on the border I mean actually checkpoints IN THE STATES, along state highways and roadways in the south specifically Arizona, you can look it up yourself also.

I was to assist them in what extra steps and techniques that can and may be used to ascertain the motives, citizenship, destination, and point of origin of individuals crossing the checkpoint. Also, how to affect a search, how to obtain probable cause, and how to detain individuals lawfully.

Now, I was teaching by the rule of LAW not some whacked out interpretation of it, so it was a very simple instruction on how to properly do your damn job. Some of the CBP officers were telling me stories of how they affected arrests, tricked people into allowing illegal searches and seizures, using intimidation tactics to affect compliance with unlawful directions.

Now after hearing these atrocious activities were happening to more than likely law abiding citizens, I contacted their section supervisor and informed him of the issues I had with their activities and also concerns of moral turpitude. He advised that he will discuss the concerns with them and handle the situation as that is absolutely NOT SOP (standard operating procedure).

I contacted my supervisor and advised him of the situation and very, very soon like 12 hours later I was reassigned back to my own unit. I was reprimanded for basically pointing out how illegal their practices were. I was informed that that’s how they have been operating and they have had fantastic results, I asked about the innocents who get caught in the crossfire, and I will NEVER forget his reply; “What innocents?” So there is an example of how some, not all, operate within the federal government. Scary damn world is it not, my friend?”

Scary damn world indeed.

Unexpected Border Stop and Presumption of Guilt

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For those of you who still think it’s easier to roll over & just answer their questions than exercise your fundamental rights while being detained & interrogated by armed Border Patrol agents at suspicionless checkpoints inside the country, the letter to the editor reprinted from Freedom’s Phoenix below shows the fallacy of this reasoning:

Unexpected Border Stop and Presumption of Guilt

Letter Written by: Kevin Flannery
Date of Letter: 2010-08-30
Subject: Immigration

Dear Editor,

I wanted to tell my story from the weekend so other Americans are more prepared than I was when traveling in Southern California and Arizona. I read some of the comments on the web page today and I think if those who supported the border patrol concerning the video shown experienced what I did, they would think different.

I was traveling back from San Diego yesterday after a fun weekend surfing. I was stopped at the California checkpoint on I-8E and asked my citizenship. I told the Border Patrolman I was an American. He instructed me to pull off to the side for an inspection. I did as I was told. When I got out of the car, I was set to a covered area and told to keep my hands out of my pockets. The agent told me the reason he had me pull over was that he smelled pot in my car. He asked me if I had a criminal record, if I smoked pot, and if I was transporting pot. I said no. I told him I do not do drugs, drink or smoke. He asked me all the questions again and told me he was going to search my vehicle and get the dogs there. I told him to do whatever he felt he needed to do. At this point, I was not too concerned. I had nothing to hide and I do not do drugs. So why worry right?

They then had another agent sit with me. He just talked casually, but the conversation always went back to drugs, trying to trick me into saying anything self incriminating. They found nothing, so the agent told me to confess or they would put the “screws” to my car. I told him again that I did not do drugs, sell drugs, or transport drugs. He then went over to my car and took everything out. I looked at the agent next to me and said, “Well, this will take a while.” His response was: “ If you had just told the truth and been honest, we would have gone easy on you.” I reaffirmed my innocents. Now, I was nervous. I was unsure of what to expect.

After another 10-15 minutes, the initial agent went to give me my driver’s license and then pulled it away. He said, “I know you are lying to me. They have dogs at the next check point and you will be charged with a felony when they find the drugs.”

The whole ordeal lasted about 30 minutes. It was embarrassing and stressful to say the least. I gave 5 years of my life to the service of our country and I got treated like a criminal. At the border patrols, there is no innocent until proven guilty.

Yesterday I was naive. Today I am aware. Americans need to be prepared for these stops and have a lawyer’s number handy. Learn you rights. I am still not sure what I can say/do and not say/do at a border patrol check point. But I will find out.

Sincerely,

Kevin Flannery”

For related articles, see:

Harassment of Domestic Travelers Continues Expanding to the North

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Two recent articles appearing in the New York Times highlight the burgeoning American police state compliments of the Department of Homeland Security.

It seems that the Border Patrol has as much difficulty finding the Northern border as its Southern counterpart, choosing instead to harass domestic Amtrak train passengers traveling between Chicago and New York City with nary a stop near anything resembling an international border.

That’s rights, armed federal agents are routinely boarding trains traveling along Northern domestic routes between major U.S. cities. Once onboard. with the full knowledge and complicity of Amtrak, these armed agents walk up & down the passenger cars, roust passengers from a sound sleep, shine flashlights in their faces and demand that they state their citizenship without any reason to believe any particular passenger is inside the country illegally.

How do they get away with it you might ask? Here’s an explanation from the article:

“Legal scholars say the government’s border authority, which extends to fixed checkpoints intercepting cross-border traffic, cannot be broadly applied to roving patrols in a swath of territory. But such authority is not needed to ask questions if people can refuse to answer. The patrol does not track how many people decline, Mr. Pocorobba said.

Asked if agents could question people in Times Square, which like most of the nation’s population centers is within 100 miles of international waters, Mr. Pocorobba replied, ‘Technically, we can, but we don’t.’ He added, ‘Our job is strictly cross-border.'”

On a side note, it’s interesting that the article explicitly acknowledges the right to refuse to answer questions. This is something I’ve been demonstrating for the past 2 1/12 years at suspicionless Border Patrol checkpoints in the Southwest. I also find it interesting to note that the Border Patrol mouthpiece acknowledged that their job is ‘strictly cross-border’ but failed to acknowledge they were interfering with the traveling public along train routes having nothing to do with the border.

Links to the two New York Times stories in question appear below:

Additionally, links to related articles on this blog can be found at:

Finally, I note that these counter-productive, un-American Border Patrol policies will only stop when a critical mass of individuals come to the realization that giving up essential liberty for faux security is a poor trade indeed. A good place to start fighting back is to stop patronizing entities such as Amtrack, Greyhound and various airlines that allow government enforcers to harass its customers absent suspicion and with impunity. Another thing to do is to stop cooperating with Border Patrol agents interfering with your travels no where near the border they’re paid to patrol.

The text of the articles linked to above appear below:

Border Sweeps in North Reach Miles Into U.S.

By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: August 29, 2010

“ROCHESTER — The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers.

“Are you a U.S. citizen?” agents asked one recent morning, moving through a Rochester-bound train full of dozing passengers at a station outside Buffalo. “What country were you born in?”

When the answer came back, “the U.S.,” they moved on. But Ruth Fernandez, 60, a naturalized citizen born in Ecuador, was asked for identification. And though she was only traveling home to New York City from her sister’s in Ohio, she had made sure to carry her American passport. On earlier trips, she said, agents had photographed her, and taken away a nervous Hispanic man.

He was one of hundreds of passengers taken to detention each year from domestic trains and buses along the nation’s northern border. The little-publicized transportation checks are the result of the Border Patrol’s growth since 9/11, fueled by Congressional antiterrorism spending and an expanding definition of border jurisdiction. In the Rochester area, where the border is miles away in the middle of Lake Ontario, the patrol arrested 2,788 passengers from October 2005 through last September.

The checks are “a vital component to our overall border security efforts” to prevent terrorism and illegal entry, said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for United States Customs and Border Protection. He said that the patrol had jurisdiction to enforce immigration laws within 100 miles of the border, and that one mission was preventing smugglers and human traffickers from exploiting inland transit hubs.

The patrol says that answering agents’ questions is voluntary, part of a “consensual and nonintrusive conversation” Some passengers agree, though they are not told that they can keep silent. But others, from immigration lawyers and university officials to American-born travelers startled by an agent’s flashlight in their eyes, say the practice is coercive, unconstitutional and tainted by racial profiling.

The Lake Shore Limited route is a journey across the spectrum of public attitudes toward illegal immigrants — from cities where they have been accepted and often treated as future citizens, to places where they are seen as lawbreakers the federal government is doing too little to expel.

The journey also highlights conflicting enforcement policies. Immigration authorities, vowing to concentrate resources on deporting immigrants with serious criminal convictions, have recently been halting the deportation of students who were brought to the country as children without papers — a group the Obama administration favors for legalization.

But some of the same kinds of students are being jailed by the patrol, like a Taiwan-born Ph.D. candidate who had excelled in New York City public schools since age 11. Two days after he gave a paper on Chaucer at a conference in Chicago last year, he was taken from his train seat and strip-searched at a detention center in Batavia, N.Y., facing deportation for an expired visa.

For some, the patrol’s practices evoke the same fears as a new immigration law in Arizona — that anyone, anytime, can be interrogated without cause.

The federal government is authorized to do just that at places where people enter and leave the country, and at a “reasonable distance” from the border. But as the patrol expands and tries to raise falling arrest numbers, critics say, the concept of the border is becoming more fluid, eroding Constitutional limits on search and seizure. And unlike Arizona’s law, the change is happening without public debate.

“It’s turned into a police state on the northern border,” said Cary M. Jensen, director of international services for the University of Rochester, whose foreign students, scholars and parents have been questioned and jailed, often because the patrol did not recognize their legal status. “It’s essentially become an internal document check.”

Domestic transportation checks are not mentioned in a report on the northern border strategy that Customs and Border Protection delivered last year to Congress, which has more than doubled the patrol since 2006, to 2,212 agents, with plans to double it again soon. The data available suggests that such stops account for as many as half the reported 6,000 arrests a year.

In Rochester, the Border Patrol station opened in 2004, with four agents to screen passengers of a new ferry from Toronto. The ferry went bankrupt, but the unit has since grown tenfold; its agents have one of the highest arrest rates on the northern border — 1,040 people in the 2008 fiscal year, 95 percent of them from buses and trains — though officials say numbers have fallen as word of the patrols reached immigrant communities.

“Our mission is to defend the homeland, primarily against terrorists and terrorist weapons,” said Thomas Pocorobba Jr., the agent in charge of the Rochester station, one of 55 between Washington State and Maine. “We still do our traditional mission, which is to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.”

Legal scholars say the government’s border authority, which extends to fixed checkpoints intercepting cross-border traffic, cannot be broadly applied to roving patrols in a swath of territory. But such authority is not needed to ask questions if people can refuse to answer. The patrol does not track how many people decline, Mr. Pocorobba said.

Asked if agents could question people in Times Square, which like most of the nation’s population centers is within 100 miles of international waters, Mr. Pocorobba replied, “Technically, we can, but we don’t.” He added, “Our job is strictly cross-border.”

Lawyers challenging the stops in several deportation cases questioned the rationale that they were aimed at border traffic. Government data obtained in litigation shows that at least three-quarters of those arrested since 2006 had been in the country more than a year.

Though many Americans may welcome such arrests, the patrol’s costly expansion was based on a bipartisan consensus about border security, not interiorenforcement to sweep up farmworkers and students, said Nancy Morawetz, who directs the immigration rights clinic at New York University.

One case she is challenging involves a Nassau County high school graduate taken from the Lake Shore Limited in Rochester in 2007. The government says the graduate, then 21, voluntarily produced a Guatemalan passport and could not prove she was in the country legally. A database later showed she had an expired visitor’s visa.

Unlike a criminal arrest, such detentions come with few due process protections. The woman was held at a county jail, then transferred across the country while her mother, a house cleaner, and a high school teacher tried to reach her. The woman first saw an immigration judge more than three weeks after her arrest. He halved the $10,000 bail set by the patrol, and she was eventually released at night at a rural Texas gas station.

“I was shocked,” said the teacher, Susanne Marcus, who said her former student had been awarded a $2,000 college scholarship.

Another challenge is pending in the 2009 train arrest of the Taiwan-born doctoral student, who had to answer the agent after being singled out for intense questioning because of his “Asian appearance,” he said. His account was corroborated in an affidavit filed this month by another passenger.

Similar complaints have been made by others, including a Chicago couple who encountered the patrol on a train to Poughkeepsie, N.Y., for the woman’s graduation from Vassar College.

“At least in Arizona, you have to be doing something wrong to be stopped,” said the woman, a citizen of Chinese-American descent who said her Mexican boyfriend was sleeping when an agent started questioning him. “Here, you’re sitting on the train asleep and if you don’t look like a U.S. citizen, it’s ‘Wake up!’ ”

Mr. Pocorobba denied that agents used racial profiling; the proof, he said, was that those arrested had come from 96 countries. Agents say they often act on suspicion, prompted by a passenger’s demeanor. Of those detained, most were in the country illegally — including the Mexican, 24, who admitted that he had sneaked across the southern border at 16 to find his father. Others were supposed to be carrying their papers, like a Pakistani college student detained for two weeks before authorities confirmed that he was a legal resident.

Some American-born passengers welcome the patrol. “It makes me feel safe,” volunteered Katie Miller, 34, who was riding Amtrak to New York from Ohio. “I don’t mind being monitored.”

To others, it evokes travel through the old Communist bloc. “I was actually woken up with a flashlight in my face,” recalled Mike Santomauro, 27, a law student who encountered the patrol in April, at 2 a.m. on a train in Rochester.

Across the aisle, he said, six agents grilled a student with a computer who had only an electronic version of his immigration documents. Through the window, Mr. Santomauro said, he could see three black passengers, standing with arms raised beside a Border Patrol van.

“As a citizen I’m offended,” he said. But he added, “To say I didn’t want to answer didn’t seem a viable option.””

When the Border Patrol Comes Aboard

“Nina Bernstein has an article on the front page today about American Border Patrol agents who board trains running completely within the United States looking for undocumented immigrants. Here is her first-person experience on such a train in upstate New York. If you’ve had an encounter with the Border Patrol, let us know in the comment box below.

Traveling from New York City to Buffalo on Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited last month, I wondered what I would say if Border Patrol agents showed up on the train at Syracuse or Rochester and asked, “Are you a U.S. citizen?”

My plan was to politely decline to answer, and see what happened next.

After all, the train was not crossing an international frontier. At the train stations and bus depots in western New York where such citizenship checks began on a small scale in 2006 and are now a little-publicized but regular feature of domestic travel, the Canadian border is far away, in the middle of Lake Ontario.

The Border Patrol said it had jurisdiction to enforce immigration laws within 100 miles of the border. But it also said that its agents’ questions were a part of “consensual, nonintrusive conversation.” In theory, that means that people are free to refuse to answer and walk away. One goal of my reporting trip was to see for myself, and for readers of The New York Times, how such conversations played out in practice.

Thousands of passengers have been taken to detention because they answered that they were not United States citizens, and then could not show immigration documents that satisfied the agents. Other passengers simply declared American citizenship and stayed in their seats. The inland transportation checks have increased as the number of agents deployed in the region has grown sixfold since 9/11.

Joanne Macri, director of the Criminal Defense Immigration Project of the New York State Defenders Association, who frequently travels by bus or train between Albany and Buffalo, told me she had never seen anyone refuse to answer in the many encounters she had witnessed.

Once, Ms. Macri said, an agent prevented her from handing her organization’s card to two Latino men he was taking from the train, and asked her if she knew what obstruction of justice was. Another time, at 1 a.m. on a Trailways bus in Rochester, a young man who showed agents a driver’s license was questioned about what hospital he had been born in, and then taken off the bus for further inquiries before eventually being allowed to reboard and travel on to Buffalo.

Ms. Macri has always answered the agents, “even though I know everybody has a right to remain silent,” she said.

“It’s 1 o’clock in the morning,” she said, “and reality sets in: Do I really want to be kicked off the bus?”

It was 4:20 a.m. by the time my train limped in to the Buffalo-Depew station, more than four hours late — too late for the Border Patrol, it appeared. But by 9 a.m., when a train on the return journey pulled into the same station, half a dozen men in green uniforms with pistols on their hips strode down the platform toward me and a family that included two women wearing saris.

An agent with a shaved head and sunglasses stopped beside me. “Are you a U.S. citizen?” he asked.

“I don’t want to answer that question,” I replied.

“Fine,” he said, and promptly turned to the family — two children, their parents and grandmother.

Unlike me, a white woman in jeans who had spoken American English with no accent, they looked and sounded like immigrants. If they said they were citizens, would they be asked for identification? If they refused to answer, as I had, would the agent just move on? Or, as upstate immigration lawyers maintained, would the agent take their silence as a justification for further inquiry?

I would never know, because the father readily replied that they were all legal permanent residents of the United States from India. He handed over all their Indian passports as soon as the agent asked for them.

A minute or two later, on the Rochester-bound train, I caught up with the same agent just as Ruth Fernandez, a naturalized citizen born in Ecuador, was giving him her United States passport. These days she feels obliged to carry it whenever she visits her sister in Ohio, she told me later.

“Checking people, I see every time,” she added in imperfect English, as her grandchild slept beside her. “I don’t like it. Not supposed to.” In Spanish, she added: “He said it was because of terrorism that they do this. I think it’s for the immigrants.”

Overhearing her complaint, another passenger, Katie Miller, objected, praising the officer for his politeness. “He wasn’t threatening anybody,” she said. With so many television reports of children being kidnapped, and the Canadian border nearby, she added, the presence of the patrol made her feel safer.

But Ms. Miller’s father, Fred Linxweiler, was not so sure. “What I worry about is how he picked her,” he said, referring to the agent’s decision to ask Ms. Fernandez for identification. “It’s O.K. if it’s really random. Otherwise, it’s going to look like this new Arizona law.”

Most passengers answered the agents readily. Others, startled from sleep, simply stared, and the agents prompted them: “State your citizenship for me, please, sir. What country were you born in?”

Some had been on the train overnight, since Chicago; many had boarded at dawn. Their features reflected ancestry from every continent: a stout black grandmother in a Brooklyn T-shirt. A graybeard wearing a yarmulke. A pale young man lost in his iPod, who said later: “I’m clueless. I don’t pay attention to news and politics. Aren’t they doing that in Arizona or something?”

By then, after a stop scheduled for five minutes had turned into 15 or 20, the agents had left the train. Other passengers, too, turned out to have Arizona on their minds, including Joe Hedger, 37, a blond graduate student in philosophy who was moving to Syracuse from Tempe with his wife and 2-year-old son.

“We’ve had Sheriff Arpaio doing this for a while,” he said, referring to Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, who patrols metropolitan Phoenix and administers the jails, “just pulling people over and asking if they’re citizens, and if they’re not, just carting them away, I guess. I was really surprised that this was happening in New York.”

He added, “It’s just like they’re authority figures, so you answer.”

Sheldon and Pam Cole of New Canaan, N.Y., who had promptly replied “both U.S. citizens” when the agent asked, also had second thoughts about the exchange.

“I am a U.S. citizen, but I could have been a German who spoke good English,” said Mr. Cole, 65, whose gray ponytail could be seen under his baseball cap. “It didn’t make a whole bunch of sense. It bothers me, because in America we’ve never been expected to carry around and produce proof of citizenship on demand.”

Without such a document requirement, he added, “It’s virtual racial profiling.”

But a couple from Norfolk, N.Y., Charlie and Sheree Frego, strongly disagreed. “They’ve got a good eye,” Mr. Frego, 51, said of the Border Patrol, citing his years of living near the Canadian border. “They can tell by your response.”

The Fregos had encountered the patrol before on buses near the border, they said. Once, at Watertown, on a bus that stops near a prison, they said, they saw agents take an African-American man off for extra screening. “I thought they did the right thing,” Mr. Frego said, adding, “He got back on the bus after 20 minutes.”

My conversations were interrupted by an Amtrak conductor who insisted that I needed written permission from the company’s media relations department to interview the passengers. I disagreed, citing the First Amendment and my ticket to Rochester.

“Are you a passenger or a reporter?” the conductor demanded.

“Both,” I said, and went back to work.

Much later, I called Cliff Cole, a spokesman for Amtrak, seeking a clarification of the railroad’s role in the patrol checks.

“Amtrak does not delay the train,” Mr. Cole said. “It’s a Border Patrol initiative with which Amtrak has been cooperative and will continue to be cooperative.”

“It’s a security measure,” he added. “They come on the train to do what they have to do — just like you would have air marshals on an airplane.”

As for my asking fellow passengers about the experience, he said, “Amtrak’s media relations policy is if you want to conduct a story and interview our passengers on a train, it must be done with prior permission.”

He did not respond to complaints from immigrant advocates that the company gives no prior notice of the requests for documents made on the Lake Shore Limited, though it warns passengers on its international routes. Others have contended that illegal immigrants should not expect a warning that they are risking apprehension when they travel.

The same issues swirled around the bus station in Rochester two days after my train trip, when agents emerged from waiting vans and boarded the Boston-to-Cleveland bus. I asked the dispatcher if I could get on to observe.

“It’s up to you, but be careful,” he said. “They don’t like traffic once they’re started asking questions — they’re nice guys, but they can get kind of ornery.”

The empty aisle seat I chose turned out to be a problem.

“Move out of the way, please,” an agent told me, gesturing at the young Latino in the window seat. “I need to get this gentleman off the bus.”

I complied, as the agent asked in Spanish if the man had found his missing papers. He had not.

As the agents hurried him off the bus and into a van, I followed, calling out to ask his name. He tried to answer, but the words were lost as the bus behind us pulled away.

Other passengers had been taken off another bus early that morning, I learned — a Bangladeshi family of four, including a woman and her son, a minor. If these apprehensions had been criminal arrests, I could have quickly learned names, ages, charges and where those arrested were being held. But no such transparency exists in these cases.

Rafael LeMaitre, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection in Washington, said privacy law did not allow the agency to say anything about the young man, or to confirm the family relationship of the Bangladeshis. Eventually, in response to repeated inquiries, he said the young man was Mexican, accused of returning to the United States illegally after accepting “voluntary departure,” and had probably been taken to detention in Batavia, N.Y. — though he could have been transferred anywhere in the country.

By then, I had traveled south from Rochester on the Lake Shore Limited, missing the patrol’s reappearance at Buffalo-Depew, according to a train attendant, Hamat Kumar, who described an unusually large contingent this time — 17 agents, including a dozen trainees.

“They always get on in Buffalo,” said Mr. Kumar, 30, a naturalized citizen born in India. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

“If I say no,” he added with a laugh, “they take me, too!””

More Reports of Widespread Border Patrol Corruption

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CBPCorruption
[Sources: Department of Homeland Security, Office of the Inspector General | Graphic: The Washington Post]

Over the past week or so, several articles regarding skyrocketing corruption within Customs and Border Protection ranks have been published in the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.

CBP corruption (formerly U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Customs) has been an ongoing trend I’ve been watching for the better part of the last decade so it’s good to see main stream media outlets starting to cover this issue in greater depth as well.

The first I heard about this topic (or at least paid attention to it) was in 2002 via a series of articles published in the Tucson Citizen and Arizona Daily Star:

Since 2002, not much has changed but the problem has grown steadily worse as the Washington Post & L.A. Times articles appearing below can attest to. Additionally, the problem with proper background screening of newly hired agents has been around for a long time. It’s not a new phenomena. In fact, as early as 1998 agents within the Border Patrol were speaking out against the agency’s hiring practices and some were even resigning in disgust.

A sampling of some of the internal jokes that used to float around Border Patrol circles (before the reality of the situation became far too painful) include the following:

“We have lowered our standards to an all-time low to fill positions”

“Think we won’t hire you? Think again”

“We have recently hired known criminals, drug smugglers, gang bangers, people out of drug rehab, pizza delivery guys (from a national chain), people who write on a fifth-grade level, and, yes, even illegal aliens.”

I make note of the corruption and poor hiring/training trends within the pages of Roadblock Revelations because of the wide latitude Customs And Border Protection agents have while working in the field and the routine contact such agents have with the general public via suspicionless checkpoints and roving patrols throughout the Southwest and more recently in the Northern states as well.

Previous articles on CBP corruption published within these pages appear below:

Excerpts from recent articles in the Washington Post and L.A. Times follow:

Border Patrol is grappling with misconduct cases in its ranks

"In the last 18 months, five Border Patrol agents have been accused or convicted of sex crimes or assaults. The latest case involved the alleged assault of a suspected drug smuggler."

By Ken Dilanian, Tribune Washington Bureau
September 7, 2010

“Reporting from Del Rio, Texas —
One by one, Border Patrol agents took the witness stand in the federal courthouse here last week to testify against a fellow officer, their faces creased with anguish.

By their accounts, Agent Jesus Enrique Diaz Jr., a husband and father with seven years on the job, tortured a 16-year-old drug smuggler two years ago by wrenching his handcuffed arms upward as he pressed a knee into his back. In an effort to make the boy reveal where he had hidden marijuana bundles near the Rio Grande, Diaz also kicked him and dropped him face-first on the ground, agents testified.

No one stopped the alleged assault as the 110-pound juvenile screamed, but some agents talked afterward about the “disgust” they felt and reported it. “I knew that what he was doing was wrong,” Agent Gabriel Lerma testified.

The result was a rare Justice Department prosecution of a Border Patrol agent on civil rights charges, and the latest indication of problems within the Border Patrol, which has grown rapidly in recent years to become the second-largest police agency in the country with sworn officers after the New York Police Department.”

Continue reading

Woman’s links to Mexican drug cartel a saga of corruption on U.S. side of border

By Ceci Connolly
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 12, 2010

….Corruption is on the rise in the ranks of U.S. law enforcement working the border, and nowhere is the problem more acute than in the frontline jobs with Garnica’s former employer, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to federal investigators. Garnica’s stiff sentence represented a rare victory in the struggle to root out tainted government employees.

Homeland Security statistics suggest the rush to fill thousands of border enforcement jobs has translated into lower hiring standards. Barely 15 percent of Customs and Border Protection applicants undergo polygraph tests and of those, 60 percent were rejected by the agency because they failed the polygraph or were not qualified for the job, said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), who oversees a Senate subcommittee on homeland security.

The number of CBP corruption investigations opened by the inspector general climbed from 245 in 2006 to more than 770 this year. Corruption cases at its sister agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, rose from 66 to more than 220 over the same period. The vast majority of corruption cases involve illegal trafficking of drugs, guns, weapons and cash across the Southwest border.”

Read more

CBP Agents Raid Home & Seize Evidence of Their Own Malfeasance

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Not content to harass domestic traffic absent individualized suspicion of wrongdoing at roadblocks inside the country, Border Patrol agents are now storming private homes to seize video evidence of their own wrongdoing.

The folks over at Photography Is Not a Crime bring us a story about seven Border Patrol agents who hunted down a man in Escondido, California who had taken video of an agent and an undercover police officer beating a suspect laying on the ground. After discovering where the videographer lived, the agents stormed & searched his house hours after the incident without a warrant. They then seized his cell phone, also without a warrant, containing video of the incident. See:

Seven Border Patrol Agents Storm into Man’s Home After Midnight Seeking Footage of Abusive Agent

Unfortunately for the agents, the owner of the cell phone had already sent a copy of the video to a local news station making it impossible for the agents to destroy the evidence of their buddy’s use of force.

From my perspective, the main issue in this story isn’t whether or not the agent depicted in the video used excessive force to subdue a suspect – a worthy question in and of itself. The main issue is whether or not Customs & Border Protection gave explicit sanction, absent probable cause or a warrant, to seven of its agents to search a private home and seize private property OR if seven CBP agents decided for themselves to storm a private home and seize private property that shows one of their buddies in a bad light.

To be frank, I’m not sure which scenario is worse. An agency that explicitly sanctions such contempt for the rule of law or an agency that has so little control over the actions of its own agents.

So what happened to the owner of the cell phone? True to form, he was arrested two days later by his parole officer – undoubtedly by request of Customs and Border Protection. An agency who’s agents seem to rarely miss a beat in harassing those who shed light on CBP malfeasance.

Mom & Kids Terrorized By Knife-Wielding Border Patrol Agent in Southern Arizona

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Rampant illegal actions by Border Patrol agents stationed in border states around the country has been the norm for quite some time now. The problem has only grown in recent years as the agency continues to expand at an alarming rate with few, if any, checks and balances. As such, it’s good to see the ACLU finally taking an active roll in seeking accountability for such illegal acts at internal checkpoints and by roving patrols.

What never ceases to amaze me however is despite the increased scrutiny of the Border Patrol in general, just how many Border Patrol agents there are who couldn’t care less while continuing to violate the law. This of course only serves to show just how arrogant the agency is and unaccountable its agents are.

Take for instance an account (see video above) of the illegal stop & search of Clarisa Christiansen and her two young children near Three Points, Arizona on May 21, 2013. The depraved actions of Border Patrol agents, who not only illegally seized & searched Clarisa’s vehicle but also threatened her with a knife and slashed her tires in order to leave her and her two children stranded in the desert, should send a shiver up everyone’s spine.

In addition to the video above, the incident is described in detail by the ACLU in a formal complaint regarding roving patrol abuse in Southern Arizona that was filed with the Department of Homeland Security on October 9, 2013:

On May 21, 2013, Clarisa Christiansen was driving home with her seven-year-old daughter and five-year-old son after picking her daughter up from elementary school. Ms. Christiansen and her children are U.S. citizens and residents of Three Points, Arizona, located west of Tucson and approximately 40 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. On their way home, at approximately 2:15 pm, the family was pulled over by a Border Patrol vehicle. The stop occurred on a stretch of dirt road about two miles from their home, which is approximately fifteen miles from the elementary school.

Ms. Christiansen stopped her vehicle and was approached by a Border Patrol agent. The agent asked her if she was a U.S. citizen; she answered affirmatively. The agent then demanded that Ms. Christiansen exit her vehicle so it could be searched. Ms. Christiansen stated that she did not consent to a search and asked the agent why she had been stopped. The agent responded that he would not provide an explanation until Ms. Christiansen exited her vehicle. Ms. Christiansen stated that she would not exit her vehicle until she was provided with an explanation for the stop. The agent refused and was clearly agitated that Ms. Christiansen had requested an explanation. At that point, two additional Border Patrol agents approached Ms. Christiansen’s vehicle.

Ms. Christiansen then stated that if there was no reason for stopping her that she would be on her way, and wished the agent a good day. The agent told her, “You’re not going anywhere.” That agent then said to the other agents, “This one is being difficult, get the Taser.” The agent opened the driver’s side door and demanded that she exit. Ms. Christiansen, now fearing for her safety and that of her children, refused. Ms. Christiansen’s children became upset; her daughter asked, “Mommy what’s going on?” Ms. Christiansen told the children to stay calm and sit still, but she could see they were confused and afraid.

The agent then approached Ms. Christiansen with a retractable knife and threatened to cut her out of her seatbelt if she didn’t exit the vehicle. Ms. Christiansen repeated her demand for an explanation, which the agents still refused to give her. Instead, the agent forcibly reached inside Ms. Christiansen’s vehicle without her consent and removed the keys from the ignition.

Ms. Christiansen had no choice but to exit the vehicle. She presented her identification. The agents ran a background check, gave her back her driver’s license, returned to their vehicle without saying anything, and drove away. The entire stop lasted approximately 35 minutes. At that point, Ms. Christiansen noticed that her rear tire had been punctured and was flat. There was a large incision along the side of the tire, consistent with a knife puncture and not a routine or accidental flat. It was a very hot day and there was no one for miles around. Fortunately, Ms. Christiansen was able to contact her brother to bring her a car jack to change the flat tire.

Ms. Christiansen reported the incident as soon as she arrived home, at around 4:00 pm. She called Border Patrol headquarters in Tucson as well as the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. She was contacted the next day by DHS official Vincent Zarcone, who identified himself as an investigator. Ms. Christiansen relayed the details of her ordeal to Mr. Zarcone over the phone and stated that she was seeking compensation for the flat tire. Mr. Zarcone invited Ms. Christiansen to his office to make a formal report, and asked that she bring the tire for evidence.

The next day, Ms. Christiansen met with Mr. Zarcone and two other DHS officials at 4720 N. Oracle Road, Suite 308 in Tucson, Arizona. Again she described the agents and their actions, and repeated her request for compensation. Mr. Zarcone and the other officials took down her story. Ms. Christiansen also provided Mr. Zarcone with the damaged tire and a receipt showing the cost of a replacement tire, which totaled approximately $50.00. Mr. Zarcone photographed but kept the flat tire. He told Ms. Christiansen that she “might” get a call regarding the case.

When Ms. Christiansen contacted Mr. Zarcone in late June 2013, a month after they had met, he told her the case had “been investigated.” When she asked what the outcome would be, he did not say. Only after the ACLU contacted Mr. Zarcone on Ms. Christiansen’s behalf did he report that the matter had been transferred to another DHS official, Richard Hill. Ms. Christainsen’s attempted to contact Mr. Hill, but Mr. Hill did not initially respond. Finally, he responded that Ms. Christiansen’s request for compensation was “not something my office deals with” and provided her with an FTCA complaint form.

Mr. Hill subsequently contacted Ms. Christiansen, informed her that he believed the tire was “torn” and had not been intentionally punctured. Mr. Hill also disclosed that one of the agents involved in the May 21 incident was named Agent Laguna. Mr. Hill further stated that he planned to interview Agent Laguna that day and would follow up with Ms. Christiansen at a later time. As of the date of this letter, Mr. Hill has failed to do so. Ms. Christiansen has been provided no further information.

Several additional online articles related to this case can be found at:

In addition to the cases of roving patrol abuse documented by the ACLU in its complaint, I’ve documented several cases of my own over the years. Links to a few of these cases appear below:

Tucson’s KOLD Investigates Internal Checkpoints

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Tucson News Now

On Monday February 9, 2015, Channel 13 News in Tucson, AZ (KOLD) published the above video and an investigative report on internal CBP checkpoints:

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) –

“There’s growing concern surrounding southern Arizona’s Border Patrol checkpoints. An increasing number of complaints are now coming from United States citizens who believe they’re wrongfully being questioned and sometimes detained by agents without probable cause….”

The complete report and video can be found on KOLD’s website at:

Border Backlash: Concern over the border patrol’s interior checkpoints


CBP Allows Corrupt Agents To Continue Working In The Field

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canales[Information above made available by the Center For Investigative Reporting]

In 2008, CBP agent Abel Canales was observed & documented by gov’t investigators accepting bribes to allow truck loads of illegal narcotics and aliens through the Tucson Sector I-19 checkpoint. For some inexplicable reason however, Canales was allowed to continue operating in the field for over three years until he was finally indicted in 2011. In 2012, Canales plead guilty to a single charge of bribery.

During the three years in which a fully armed & corrupt Canales was allowed to continue working in the field, interacting with an unsuspecting public in a position of power and influence, Canales managed to dig his hole even deeper by shooting and injuring for life an unarmed illegal immigrant in 2010.

That illegal immigrant turned around and filed suit against Canales and the federal government. Earlier this week, a federal judge largely agreed with the plaintiff and awarded him $500,000 dollars for Canales’ excessive use of force. $500,000 that will ultimately be paid by an unsuspecting public.

Several articles regarding Agent Canales and this case can be found below:

Judge: Migrant shot by agent should get $500,000
U.S. ordered to pay $500,000 in Border Patrol shooting
Agent charged with corruption now at center of civil suit over shooting

I suppose we should feel lucky that Canales didn’t do even more damage during his three years of ‘service’ to the country while being allowed to operate with impunity in the public sphere during his corruption investigation.

What’s interesting to note is that while CBP takes its sweet time taking corrupt agents like Canales off the streets, it reacts with blinding speed when trying to get rid of agents like Mike Flanders who actually attempt to uphold the public trust in the performance of their duties. The stark contrast in cases like this make it clear where CBP’s priorities really are.

As stories like this continue to pour out of the Department of Homeland Security, perhaps the question we should be asking ourselves is while CBP is allegedly ‘protecting’ us from illegal aliens, smugglers, & drug lords, who is protecting us from CBP?

For more blog entries regarding CBP corruption in these pages, see:

Border Patrol Corruption Worse Than First Thought

Swanton Sector Border Patrol Agents Assault Woman At Checkpoint

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swantonSectorAgentsProving itself to be an equal opportunity harasser regardless of what border it operates near, Border Patrol agents stationed near Canada were recently caught on tape illegally detaining, physically assaulting and tasering 21 year old Jessica Cooke near Waddington, New York.  The incident occurred on May 7, 2015 and the agents primarily responsible for the assault can be seen above as well as in the video below:

The victim, Mz. Cooke, was driving home along Route 37 in Northern New York with her puppy when she was stopped & seized at a temporary roadblock erected by Border Patrol agents not actually patrolling the border. Rather, the armed federal agents were interfering with domestic traffic absent individualized suspicion of wrongdoing along an East-West highway several miles South of the international border with Canada. Since Route 37 is a rural highway that connects several local communities in the area and runs East to West, it is not a nexus point for border traffic . Indeed, a review of the video above shows a domestic farm house on the opposite side of the road where the incident took place:

swantonSectorFarmHouse2

During the initial stop, the female agent apparently ordered Mz. Cooke to open her trunk for a search absent probable cause. The driver refused making it clear she didn’t consent to the intrusion. This in turn prompted the female agent to not only demand Mz. Cooke’s driver’s license but to also order her over to secondary inspection for an extended detention (and a drug dog sniff from a K9 unit that wasn’t present at the time of the incident and had to be called to the scene).

For those of you who live in the Southwest, you’re probably already quite familiar with this particular Border Patrol tactic. See:

The video of the incident picks up at some point after the driver has pulled into secondary inspection per the agent’s demand. The driver can be heard asking the agent what’s going on while demanding that her license be returned to her. The female agent walks over and hands back her license at about the same time the onscene supervisor is walking over as well.

After handing back her license, neither agent asks any questions regarding her citizenship making it clear they were satisfied with her immigration status. This should have marked the end of the detention since the lawful scope of the roadblock is limited to brief immigration-related queries. Indeed, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, at internal roadblocks agents need consent or probable cause to extend the initial stop or to search:

“It is agreed that checkpoint stops are ‘seizures’ within the meaning of the 4th Amendment.” – U.S. v Martinez-Fuerte

“(secondary) Referrals are made for the sole purpose of conducting a routine & limited inquiry into residence status that cannot feasibly be made of every motorist where the traffic is heavy.” - U.S. v Martinez-Fuerte

“The 4th Amendment held to forbid Border Patrol officers, in the absence of consent or probable cause, to search private vehicles at traffic checkpoints removed from the border & its functional equivalents, & for this purpose there is no difference between a checkpoint & a roving patrol.” – U.S. V Ortiz

“…We have held that checkpoint searches are constitutional only if justified by consent or probable cause to search….& our holding today is limited to the type of stops described in this opinion. -‘[A]ny further detention…must be based on consent or probable cause.’ ” United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, supra, at 882. None of the defendants in these cases argues that the stopping officers exceeded these limitations.” - U.S. v Martinez-Fuerte

Instead of allowing the driver to go on her way however, the agents continued the illegal seizure – going so far as to state that Mz. Cooke could walk away or call a friend to pick her up but that she couldn’t take her vehicle with her. To justify this, the female agent claimed the driver had been acting nervously, something anyone would be when faced with armed government agents seizing you under threat of force absent reasonable suspicion to interrogate you for unknown crimes. Something that’s especially true when the agents are employed by an agency that’s as unaccountable, opaque and out of control as Customs & Border Protection.

The driver protested the extended seizure and things went down hill quickly from there. In short order, the supervisor laid hands on the driver & shoved her to the ground while the female agent pulled out her tazer and used it on the screaming 21 year old woman.

To the folks who live in the Northern part of the country and are experiencing the special brand of  ‘service’ and ‘protection’ offered by the U.S. Border Patrol with Customs & Border Protection under the Department of Homeland Security for the first time, let me welcome you to Checkpoint USA

Links to several additional articles associated with this incident are available below:

Court Finds CBP FOIA Violation Excuses Laughable

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A federal magistrate in Phoenix, Arizona recently chastised U.S. Customs & Border Protection (USCBP) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for blatant violations of the Freedom of Information Act. The magistrate’s findings were the result of an ongoing lawsuit filed by the ACLU & two University of Arizona law professors over three years ago.

While violations of federal law by DHS and USCBP are nothing new and FOIA lawsuits against them are numerous, what’s relatively unique in this case is the subject of the FOIA lawsuit referenced above. Specifically, it targets the Green Monster’s policies & procedures regarding interior enforcement operations such as internal roadblocks and roving patrols along with complaints filed against USCBP related to the enforcement of those policies and procedures.

True to form, USCBP initially refused to investigate or respond to the ACLU’s complaints regarding interior roadblock and roving patrol operations and only grudgingly began releasing documentation after a FOIA lawsuit was filed in 2014. Over a year later, only a fraction of the thousands of responsive documents had been released to the ACLU by USCBP and what was released had been heavily redacted. U.S. Customs & Border Protection then declared it was done cooperating with the FOIA request and refused to release anything further. In response, the ACLU published a preliminary report based upon what had been released while at the same time appealing to the federal judiciary regarding the heavy redactions in the released documents and the thousands of remaining documents that hadn’t been released at all.

The ACLU’s preliminary reported titled:

Record of Abuse: Lawlessness and Impunity in Border Patrol’s Interior Enforcement Operations

was released in October 2015. While the report was based on incomplete documentation from USCBP, it nonetheless made it abundantly clear why the Border Patrol was refusing to release anything further:

Government records obtained by the ACLU shed new light on Border Patrol’s vast interior enforcement operations, most of which occur far from any international border. Though Border Patrol says these operations are “safe, efficient, and cost-effective,” the agency’s own records undermine those claims, revealing a systemic lack of oversight and accountability for agents who violate border residents’ most basic civil and constitutional rights on a dramatic scale. These documents show that Border Patrol’s extra-constitutional police practices often amount to a de facto policy of “stop and frisk” for border residents.

The report goes on to not only show that USCBP has been actively lying to Congress by substantially under-reporting the number of complaints filed against the agency:

Specifically, though the complaint records obtained by the ACLU to date are incomplete and taken from just two of Border Patrol’s twenty sectors, they significantly outnumber the civil rights complaints DHS and CBP disclosed to Congress during the same period. For example, from Fiscal Year 2012 through Fiscal Year 2013, DHS oversight agencies reported just three complaints involving alleged Fourth Amendment violations, nationwide. Yet government records produced to the ACLU reveal that at least 81 such complaints originated in Tucson and Yuma Sectors alone during the same period (with at least 38 more through just part of FY 2014).
But also the seriousness of those complaints:

 

The records contain recurring examples of Border Patrol agents detaining, searching, and terrorizing individuals and entire families at interior checkpoints and in “roving patrol” vehicle stops far into the interior of the country; threatening motorists with assault rifles, electroshock weapons, and knives; destroying and confiscating personal property; and interfering with efforts to video record Border Patrol activities. They reference dozens of false alerts by Border Patrol service canines resulting in searches and detentions of innocent travelers. Above all, these documents show a near-total lack of investigation of, much less discipline for, egregious civil rights abuses; to the contrary, some of the records show Border Patrol tacitly or explicitly encouraging its agents to violate the law.
Additionally, the report highlights the fundamental ineffectiveness of interior checkpoints at their stated goal and shows how interior checkpoints are more often than not used for illegal purposes such as general crime control and drug interdiction:

 

Finally, CBP’s own data calls into question the agency’s claims that interior checkpoint operations are an efficient and effective enforcement strategy. For example, CBP apprehension statistics show that for 2013, Tucson Sector checkpoint apprehensions accounted for only 0.67 percent of the sector’s total apprehensions. In calendar year 2013, nine out of 23 Tucson Sector checkpoints produced zero arrests of “deportable subjects.” The same year, Yuma Sector checkpoint arrests of U.S. citizens exceeded those of non-citizens by a factor of nearly eight (and in 2011, by a factor of 11). One checkpoint in Yuma Sector, located 75 miles from the border, reported only one non-citizen apprehension in three years, while producing multiple civil rights complaints during the same period. Despite the Supreme Court’s prohibition on general “crime control” checkpoints, these records indicate that Border Patrol checkpoint activities are more often directed at drug busts than at immigration enforcement.
It makes one wonder what it is USCBP is trying to hide by refusing to release thousands of additional documents responsive to the ACLU’s FOIA request.

 

Earlier this year, when considering whether or not USCBP had met its obligations under the Freedom of Information Act, Federal Magistrate Bernardo Velasco stated:

 

Government transparency is critical to maintaining a functional democratic polity, where the people have the information needed to check public corruption, hold government leaders accountable, and elect leaders who will carry out their preferred policies,” he wrote. The result, he said was FOIA, which is designed “to facilitate public access to government documents by establishing a judicially enforced right to secure government information from possibly unwilling official hands.

Regarding USCBP’s reasons for refusing to release any further information related to the FOIA request, Velasco went on to criticize the USCBP on the following main points:

  • USCBP has no valid reason for refusing to release information regarding the location of the agency’s interior roadblocks since such roadblocks aren’t secret, cannot be made secret given the nature of the operations & part of SCOTUS’s rationale for allowing them in the first place was based on their limited scope and visibility to the public
  • USCBP’s contention that releasing data regarding the nationality & skin color of people stopped by agents was  a violation of their privacy is laughable since personally identifiable information regarding such individuals was not being requested.
  • Since the USCBP claims their drug sniffing dogs are reliable and certified, USCBP can’t withhold documentation related to the certification and reliability of the K-9 units routinely employed at interior roadblocks.

 

While all of these points are common sense to most of us, it’s clear that USCBP leadership is not only full of individuals with little in the way of common sense but also individuals who have little more than thinly veiled contempt for the rule of law, individual rights and government transparency. What else would one expect however from agents of an agency that routinely stops, seizes, detains and demands individuals answer investigatory questions absent any reasonable basis to believe they’ve violated any law while at the same time ignoring their legal mandate to answer questions and provide access to public documentation to the very public the agency claims to serve and protect.

Additional links related to the content of this story appear below:

Over The Line…

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If there’s one thing people can agree on regarding CBP (Customs & Border Protection), it’s that the agency routinely operates over the line. To illustrate this fact, Rachael Maddux of the Virginia Quarterly Review recently published a wide ranging article on CBP operations inside the country. The article is available online at: Over the Line … Continue reading "Over The Line…"

Board of Supervisors Consider Rejecting Stonegarden Grant

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In a 3 to 2 vote earlier this month, the Pima County Board of Supervisors opted to reject $1.4 million dollars in federal funds associated with the Operation Stonegarden grant program for the first time since the Pima County Sheriff’s Dept. began participating in the program sometime around 2012-2013: Given that the Pima County Sheriff’s … Continue reading "Board of Supervisors Consider Rejecting Stonegarden Grant"

ACLU Investigation Confirms CBP Malfeasance

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I started writing this post a few years ago after the ACLU of Arizona first released it’s Record of Abuse investigative report regarding U.S. Border Patrol interior enforcement operations in the Tucson and Yuma sectors. I let the article get away from me at the time but recent events have brought me back to it. … Continue reading "ACLU Investigation Confirms CBP Malfeasance"

KOLD Covers Checkpoint USA Lawsuit

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I was recently interviewed by KOLD’s Craig Reck in Tucson, AZ regarding a civil rights lawsuit that was recently filed in U.S. District Court that I’m involved in: COMPLAINT: Tucson Engineer challenges checkpoint The lawsuit is the result of ongoing harassment I’ve been the subject of for years by Pima County Sheriff Deputies and U.S. … Continue reading "KOLD Covers Checkpoint USA Lawsuit"

‘Just Security’ weighs in on Checkpoint USA Lawsuit

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On May 25th, 2018, Patrick Eddington with Just Security posted an article regarding Checkpoint USA’s recently filed civil rights lawsuit & federal tort claim. For those who aren’t already familiar with the legal action, the lawsuit was filed against the Pima County Sheriff’s Department & various Customs & Border Protection agents in their individual capacities … Continue reading "‘Just Security’ weighs in on Checkpoint USA Lawsuit"

CBP Agent Rams Vehicle Into Videographer

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I began following the story of Paulo Remes, the Tohono O’odham man who was intentionally struck by an agent driving a Border Patrol vehicle, shortly after the story broke in June 2018: I held off posting anything about it however while waiting for more information to be released. I was (naively) hoping that between the … Continue reading "CBP Agent Rams Vehicle Into Videographer"
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