So much winning.

in Trump's Amerikkka.

"Live Free or Die."

How that meshes with "Your papers please" and "you can't drive down this public road without my permission" remains to be seen.

From Live Free or Die to Papers Please brought to you by the republican party and its fuhrer folks.

Them: "Where were you born?"

Me: "In a hospital"

Them: "What state were you born in?"

Me: "I was born in a state of grace"

Them: "Ok smart ass, what country were you born in?"

Me: "How dare you refer to my mother's vagina that way! Fuck off Nazi" Speeds away

When they ask what state were you born in, maybe you should answer

Nude, just like everyone.

does the border control people have permission to do this by the Governor?

Do you think that the Border control people think human trafficking is being done with the kids/and babies?

First of all, I would probably have my wife with me, and she is a citizen of Germany. She would be there on a perfectly legal visit, but I don't trust these goons to realize that. After all, they almost caused Mercedes to consider closing their plant in Alabama (4000 employees) by detaining a visiting manager from Germany who was there on a business trip.

Had they done ANYTHING other than let us both go, I would then have asked the offending officer what country HE was a citizen of, and to produce his passport or birth certificate, so I could be sure I was dealing with an American official. When he could produce neither, I would have gotten in a lot of trouble by trying to report him as a possible illegal to his nearby fellow uniforms.

I have been through hundreds of check points in AZ/CA/TX border with my wife who is a Permanent Resident and even with my son in law who has a Temporary Protection Order and is undocumented.


All you have to do is say "US Citizen, wife permanent resident" and they wave you through.

It has been long established by the Supreme Court that the Border Patrol can set up check points within 100 miles of the border (they don't close down highways) and are permitted to ask people what their citizenship is.

They took less than 30 seconds to look at my SIL TPO documentation, but that was under President Obama, and Trump has taken it away but I believe that the TPOs expire next year.

You are not required to answer the question and the Border Patrol cannot detain anyone for not answering, they would need probable cause to do that and not answering the question does not give them probable cause. It would give them reasonable cause to wave you into secondary so that they could politely ask you to stand outside of the car while they search it. A simple answer takes about 8 seconds.

There are hundreds of youtube videos of people keeping their windows rolled up and yelling at the officers. Usually they wave people through but if they get an alert by the dog they can ask the driver to move to secondary. If they don't move Border Patrol officers still cannot detain the people in the car, they would have to call the local sheriff and have them arrested for not following a lawful order from a law enforcement officer and for blocking the highway. Most of the time the Border Patrol knows that people who are rude and aggressive are citizens of the US and just wave them through.

Residents of the Southern Border go through border check points on a daily basis. What most people don't realize is that besides getting alerts from the dogs the main reason that they would ask someone to go to secondary is because they have cameras prior to the stop and use software to identify cars that are likely traffickers because of their traffic pattern.

At one checkpoint I was at the Border Patrol stopped an ambulance that was with full sirens etc a dozen cars in front of me. I watched in amazement while they unloaded the ambulance and started taking out bundles that appeared to be of cocaine. Another time I was behind a Safeway semi trailer and was astonished when they opened it up that there were about 60 people standing in side. Even the Agents were surprised at that one and they all started running after the driver who had started running up the mountain.

First of all, my wife is not a US resident (and at this point will entertain no suggestions of it). Second, she has been recently harassed at the Vermont/Quebec border by a completely incompetent CBP officer who threatened to detain her for overstaying her legally allowed period because the idiot was too lazy to search her passport to find the entry stamp that she told him was in there. She outwitted him by saying of course, he was right, she told him the date of her arrival back in Germany, but the flight from the USA was an overnight flight, so she would be leaving the day before.

We had come over in May for a few days for my nephew's college graduation. She had then re-entered the USA in July for a six week vacation, also well within the legal limit. Her visit to Vermont was in early August. The CPB jerk as too lazy to find the entry stamp put in her passport by his colleague at Logan Airport in Boston. I found in within ten seconds when my wife showed me her passport a week later. People with perfectly legitimate documents and no offenses to atone for still have every reason to fear incompetent "border police" who have no incentive to be efficient or even legal in their actions.

The Border Patrol has nothing to do with the Customs Officers at the port of entry. Customs Officers are prohibited from even pursuing aliens that flee from the Port more than 100 yards.

If the Customs Officer was too lazy to look at the passport, I suggest asking for the supervisor.

Yes my wife is a permanent resident so in your case all you would have to say is "citizen, wife travelling with visa" at the check point. I mentioned I travelled with my son in law through one check point who is technically an undocumented alien, had no passport, no visa but passed through the border patrol checkpoints without a problem as the Border Patrol Agents were following directions from the Obama administration.

I understand you live outside the US and may not be aware that there are 170 checkpoints in the US and millions go through them every day without incident, although any human activity that has that level of activity will have some level of abuse or error, just like you experienced at the port of entry.

My wife accidentally drove to Mexico once and turned around and re entered the US without Passport, Visa or Green Card and only a driver's license. They asked a few questions and determined she was telling the truth. Once in Chicago she was pickpocketed and had to go through TSA screening with no picture ID and only the police report. Again they asked a few questions and she was allowed to proceed.

I absolutely believe what you said about the particular customs officer and it would be useful when that kind of thing happens to take it to a supervisor so that officer's performance can be reviewed although we frequently think of that after the fact.

Making a sweeping judgement on "border police" based on a single incident would be as wrong as making a sweeping judgment about Germans, which many Americans do. Rather than the rigid, reactionary and cold image that most Americans have of Germans I have found them enlightened, flexible and friendly. In 1985 I left my wife and daughter in a hotel in Cologne while I went to Denmark for the day. We underestimated the amount of milk my infant daughter needed and my wife was walking down a commercial street in the afternoon searching for an open store.

We were not aware that many German stores closed at noon. A nice man seeing a non white foreigner somewhat lost stopped the car and drove her to the only store open some miles away where he purchased the milk for her and drove her back to the hotel. I like to tell this story when Americans make a reference to German "racism". It kind of reminds me of the Customs Officer who was very kind to my wife when she dropped me off at the Port of San Ysidro for a union meeting and then she turned left into Mexico. That Customs Officer went out of his way to assist her returning to the US even though she didn't have her passport or permanent resident card and did so in a friendly and intelligent way, thinking back on it I wish I had found who it was so I could commend the officer to his supervisor, but we always think of these things after the fact.

This wasn't at an airport. It was at a tiny border crossing in Montgomery Center, Vermont. In this case, the CBP (which, after, all, means Customs and Border Patrol, right?) guys handle both functions. The distinction of duties between INS and Customs blurred with the formation of CBP.

We mentioned it, as a matter of fact, not to a supervisor, but to the Secretary of Homeland Security, who asked us for all the details. He said he'd pass it down, but it was in the last days of the Obama administration (December 2016), and he said the incoming guy would probably less receptive to any complaints. Obviously, being a Trump appointee, we didn't know the guy at all, and had no intention of trying to.

For that matter, out of the last three times we have come in to Atlanta for our annual New Year's gathering, my wife has been detained twice by CBP idiots. The first time because the guy couldn't add and (falsely) accused her of trying to spend more time in the USA than was allowed. She (we) were sent to a detention area for an hour until she was called before a supervisor, who could add correctly, checked her return reservation, and, in ten seconds, said she was fine to go. The next year, another CBP clown, himself an immigrant, ironically enough, said her fingerprints didn't match, and sent us again to the detention area. Now we insisted that she had the same fingers on her hands that had been on her hands the last hundred times she had traveled to the USA, but he was having none of it. Again, after an hour in detention, she was called before a supervisor. He took one look, rolled his eyes, said sorry about this, and instantly said she was free to go.

I was not mentioning one isolated incident, but rather one out of a pattern with three different CBP officers at two completely different border crossings. I'm quite confident that they are not all like that, as you say, but one cannot say that we had the bad luck to chance on the one bad egg among a sea of princes.

The Germans are just as much of a mixed bag, although at our airport (Düsseldorf), after all this time, I know most of the customs officers anyway. Some of them, I have worked with for nearly twenty years. A year and a half ago, though, after a flight from Atlanta, I got stopped by a new guy I had never seen before. I guess he felt like flexing his muscles or something. He stopped me and asked, in English, what the purpose of my visit to Germany was. Now, keep in mind, this was after I had already cleared German immigration. I replied, also in English, that I had a very good reason for traveling to Germany, since I lived here, and produced my residency permit. This was not was what he was expecting, but he wasn't giving up so easily. He then said that if I lived in Germany then I must be able to speak German. I said that I did indeed speak German. He then switched to German and asked why I hadn't spoken German from the beginning. I pointed out that he was the one who started off speaking English, not me, and it wasn't my place to order him what language to speak. He had no answer for this, but STILL wasn't giving up. He then asked if I had any cash on me. I reached into my pocket and showed him the maybe $75 and €250 I had on me, and said of course I had cash, since I didn't think the taxi drivers would take me home for free. At this point, he then gave up and let me go.

Now, most Germans aren't like that either, but they seem to be better schooled once they get over their initial power trip. The older guys in the States seem to go on instinct. These are the more experienced guys who can spot trouble from a mile away, and can spot someone who is no danger from a mile and a half away. In Germany, they go by the book, but also have the same instinct after 20 years on the job. But the lazy ones, the not-too-bright ones, and the young ones feeling a need to "prove" themselves--they can be total assholes, and a civilian crossing the border is at their mercy, whether they know what they are doing or not.

if they stopped an attorney and asked them those questions, I can hear the attorney say "on what grounds are you asking for proof of citizenship do you have a warrant"?

its been well established by the Supreme Court for 40 years

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Martinez-Fuerte

It doesn't require reasonable suspicion. Papers, please!!!

1) In the cited case there was one driver and 4 passengers who were slumped down trying to evade detection, that gave them probable cause.

2) They don't need probable cause to simply ask a question "are you a citizen?". You are not required to answer the question and before they can detain you they need probable cause and not answering a question is not probable cause.

I am the only "native born" person in my family and have been through check points hundreds of times and simply answer "citizen, and permanent residents". No one has asked for papers but a few times they asked if my wife had her permanent resident card with her and with a yes the next response is almost always "have a good day" but a couple of times they asked to see it. A couple of times we didn't have the green card and they asked a couple of more questions and then waved us through.

It was a 7-2 decision (meaning liberal judges agreed to it) and if it were onerous as you imagine it would have been challenged many times in the last 40 years, but hasn't been.

"And the reasonableness of the procedures followed in making these checkpoint stops makes the resulting intrusion on the interests of motorists minimal. On the other hand, the purpose of the stops is legitimate and in the public interest, and the need for this enforcement technique is demonstrated by the records in the cases before us. Accordingly, we hold that the stops and questioning at issue may be made in the absence of any individualized suspicion at reasonably located checkpoints. [Footnote 15]"

Thus, a Border Patrol agent that sends a vehicle to secondary does not violate the Fourth Amendment even without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion:

"We further believe that it is constitutional to refer motorists selectively to the secondary inspection area at the San Clemente checkpoint on the basis of criteria that would not sustain a roving patrol stop." (The court was referring to the Terry v. Ohio requirement of roving patrol).

"Thus, even if it be assumed that such referrals are made largely on the basis of apparent Mexican ancestry, [Footnote 16] we perceive no constitutional violation. Cf. United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 422 U. S. 885-887. As the intrusion here is sufficiently minimal that no particularized reason need exist to justify it, we think it follows that the Border Patrol officers must have wide discretion in selecting the motorists to be diverted for the brief questioning involved."


Please note where it said no suspicion is required. Thanks.

They don't have to have suspicion to a) stop a car and b) ask a question.

To take ANY further action, like detaining or arresting a person they require standard probable cause.

You don't have to do anything, including answer the question, and not answering the question does not give them probable cause. I know that you want to be a hard case and pretend that people are being roused and "asked for their papers" but that is not the case, so instead of explaining it to you I will quote the ACLU

You started your response by suggesting that it would be great if an attorney would go through and challenge an obviously illegal activity by the Border Patrol.

When the legal basis was proved you then gave an opinion that people passing through the check points had to provide papers without reasonable suspicion, which is not true.

So to dumb it down to the simplest level, the Border Patrol is authorized to stop cars within 100 miles of the border and ask one or two questions, they still have to have reasonable cause to search you.

No one is required to answer the question and not answering the question does not give probable cause for a search, detention or arrest.

So to be crystal clear the Border Patrol is not authorized to search or detain you without probable cause, they are authorized to stop people within 100 miles of the border and ask them their citizenship, but not answering the question does not give probable cause. What answering the question does is to assist the Agent in confirming your legal status so that you can pass through more quickly.

I tell what this is doing it shows you who are really trump supporters.

Why? Are they afraid of all the nasty Canadian criminals that might be sneaking over the border?

What are they trying to say ?

Yes, white privilege is involved, but I still like it even if they are white RWers (which most of them who post videos seem to be).

I am sympathetic to the border patrol agents doing their jobs, but still I like the little acts of civil disobedience.

He has the right to say no and the right to say nothing but when the Border Patrol Agent told him to pull over he was giving a lawful order and disobeying it broke the law and by staying stationary in the lane he was obstructing traffic. While the Border Patrol Agent cannot arrest you for disobeying those instructions they can call the sheriff and the sheriff can arrest you for not following a lawful order from a law enforcement officer and blocking traffic. Normally they won't bother with it but if there happens to be a deputy sheriff there they can arrest you for not moving your car into secondary and impound your car, just so people know.

Here is the instruction from the ACLU for those that want to follow the rules, they don't refer to the issue of moving your car, but I am sure that if they are asked if a law enforcement officer tells you to move your car to another lane they would recommend that you do it.

I suppose refusing to move to a secondary area is the real game of chicken.

If you move they can just let you sit until you comply, but if you don't move and block traffic this puts pressure on them to let you move along.

I suppose that's why one of the fellows says he won't do it if the sheriff is at the checkpoint, too.

1) If you move to secondary you are complying and they will then take a closer examination and run the dog by the car. If nothing comes up suspicious (which is most of the time because people that refuse to answer are drawing attention, someone who is doing something illegal isn't likely to do) then they will allow them to proceed, they still need to clear space in secondary as well. The BP Agents really aren't interested in these guys and normally doesn't prosecute if they find small amounts of illegal drugs for personal use. Its just not their mission.

2) If they don't respond to the instruction to move the car by the BPA the deputy won't ask them again, he will be put under arrest and he will be under a world of hurt and even the ACLU won't assist. A lot of these guys are extreme right wing followers of right wing sovereign groups, they also don't think that the IRS has the legal authority to levy tax.

It's pure Nazism. It's show me your papers.

and fumigated. And ICE needs to be abolished.

legal marijuana goes into effect in October!