By Joe Wright
As the immigration debate continues to rage in America, the application of the Constitution-Free Zone that extends 100 miles inland around the borders of the U.S. is creating a quandary for private companies forced to comply with a federal mandate.
Greyhound Lines, Inc. is one of America’s longest-running transportation companies at 104 years and now finds itself at the center of a growing number of reports about random searches and even detentions that are occurring along its line from Florida to Texas to Seattle. All told, its compliance with border patrol puts an estimated 18 million passengers per year at risk across 3,800 destinations.
According to a company spokesperson, as reported by MySanAntonio.com, Greyhound is not pleased with the position they have been put in, but so far has not taken a definitive stand against the government by requiring probable cause to enter its private property and harass its customers:
A spokesperson, Lanesha Gipson, said the company doesn’t “support or coordinate these searches, nor are we happy about them.” Gipson acknowledged that searches negatively affect customers. She said Greyhound also worried about the risk it puts drivers in, too.
“We have started conversations with the Border Patrol to determine if there is anything that can be done to balance the enforcement of federal law with the dignity and privacy of our valued customers,” Gipson said.
Gipson cited a series of laws with which she said Greyhound must comply when it comes to immigration checks on buses. They include the statutory provision saying that any immigration officer has the power to board buses and search for undocumented riders without a warrant “within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States” to prevent unlawful entry.
Perhaps even more troubling than the constitutional violations taking place by gun-toting border agents demanding papers from Greyhound riders are the accounts of fully legal individuals being carted away and detained, sometimes with separation from family members including children.
As I highlighted just yesterday, New York has joined Maine in also becoming a central hub of border searches that extend far inland and away from traditional immigration locations. The new reports from Florida, Texas and Seattle indicate either the increased spotlight that immigration is receiving or an accelerating trend of dragnet fishing expedition sweeps that are occurring around the nation.
As you can see in the map and video below, the Constitution-Free Zone includes every major city in the U.S., putting 2/3 of the population under de facto federal rule that severely compromises the rights most people believe they entitled to as legal citizens or residents of the United States.
As also noted above, the definition of “border patrol” no longer means dealing strictly with human agents. The deployment of drones, biometrics, DNA collection, electronics searches and even social media checks are spreading as well.
All Americans with a conscience should ask whether or not justice is being served or a “deterrent” is being provided by the removal of the core principles on which the nation was founded. The misapplication of immigration laws, faulty processing, failure to confirm proper documentation, random searches, arrests, family separations and detentions are more akin to a police state run amok than as the actions of any purported leader of the free world.
Fortunately, more attention is being paid to a problem that existed long before Donald Trump entered office. There is finally some encouraging news that Trump has encountered enough pushback to have signed an Executive Order that will stop the most egregious of the abuses taking place. In the meantime, people should continue examining their own core values and if those values are properly being represented.
For additional information, I have included below an overview by the ACLU of why the expansion of the Constitution-Free Zone is a threat to everyone. I’ve also included a video of what freedom looks like in Syracuse, New York as travelers of all types are interrogated for their citizenship status.
Outdated Legal Authority and Lack of Oversight
- The regulations establishing the 100-mile border zone were adopted by the U.S. Department of Justice in 1953—without any public comments or debate. At the time, there were fewer than 1,100 Border Patrol agents nationwide; today, there are over 21,000.
- The Border Patrol often ignores this regulation and rejects any geographic limitation on agents’ authority. At least two federal circuit courts condone Border Patrol operations outside the 100-mile zone, federal regulations and Supreme Court precedent notwithstanding.
- Federal border agents are stopping, interrogating, and searching Americans on an everyday basis with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing, and often in ways that our Constitution does not permit.
- For example, Border Patrol, according to news reports, operates approximately 170 interior checkpoints throughout the country (the actual number in operation at any given time is not publicly known). The ACLU believes that these checkpoints amount to dragnet, suspicionless stops that cannot be reconciled with Fourth Amendment protections. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of immigration checkpoints, but only insofar as the stops consist only of a brief and limited inquiry into residence status. Checkpoints cannot be primarily used for drug-search or general law enforcement efforts. In practice, however, Border Patrol agents often do not limit themselves to brief immigration inquiries and regularly conduct criminal investigations and illegal searches at checkpoints. The Border Patrol also frequently pulls over motorists in “roving patrol” stops, often without any suspicion that an immigration violation has occurred.
- The ACLU has documented numerous cases of abuse by Border Patrol and filed lawsuits to obtain more information about the agency’s practices. Given Border Patrol’s lack of transparency, and in the absence of any meaningful oversight, there is still much that we don’t know about the full extent and impact of these interior “border enforcement” operations.
You can find more from Joe Wright at Activist Post, where this article first appeared.
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Top image: Pixabay
H/T: MassPrivateI
“… the application of the Constitution-Free Zone that extends 100 miles inland around the borders of the U.S. … ”
Lawfully there is NO CONSTITUTION-FREE zone. Look at the DELEGATED powers to the three branches and to named offices within a branch and show me where in the US Constitution where the authority to ignore the US Constitution anywhere is given. It is not.
What you are talking about is governmental criminals trying to put one over on the people so that they can behave in unLawful ways (and if you do not know it, a capital “L” on the word “law” denotes constitutional law that is, as is required in writing, in Pursuance thereof the US Constitution).
Thank you for pointing out the Constitution’s place in this. What we see over and over and over is government officials perjuring their Oath to support the Constitution. They continually put the lesser statutes above the Supreme Law of the Land. There is absolutely no need for a Constitution Free Zone to secure our borders.
And a corrupt judicial system is an integral part of trashing the Constitution!
What none of you seem to be able to comprehend is obvious to anyone who is educated. Having been schooled in our compulsory government school system has, in the vast majority of our population, produced an effect that is the exact opposite of education. If you examine and compare the manner in which government now conducts itself at all levels, local, state, and national, to the manner in which it is required to be conducted by the seven articles of the constitution for the united states of America that was ratified in 1789, and the ten amending articles commonly (now uncommonly) known as the Bill of Rights, you will immediately discover that there is not even a remote similarity. You can start by looking at Article I, Section 1. “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.” The president is NOT empowered to make law, or to change or to “interpret” laws made by congress; but has been doing so continuously since Abraham Lincoln issued the first, Executive Order No. 1, on April 15, 1861. Later in Article II, Section 3., the constitution makes this clear by stating,”he shall take care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. Incidentally, contrary to what most people believe, we do not have “constitutional rights”. The “Bill of Rights does not confer upon us any rights, and, for that reason, does not grant government the power to alter, suspend, claim any such right, or to abolish those rights. The fundamental premise underlying the concept of human rights is that all humans HAVE those rights at birth, and are derived from a greater power than any human or government can possess. Further, the supreme court is NOT granted the power to “interpret” the constitution, OR to decide whether a law is constitutional or not. Read Article III and see for yourself. If you learn the truth, an almost non-existent quantity in Western Civilization today, you will learn that no one living today has ever lived in a constitutional republic under the constitution for the united states of America.
This is Anti American ACLU propaganda.
America is being infested by criminal foreign agents. America is going bankrupt from being forced to support, feed, house, school, subsidize the mind boggling number of offspring these illegal invaders have here. Americans are being attacked, raped and murdered by these foreigners while they wave the flag of a foreign country in our faces!
These criminals are a festering wound blighting America as a whole! Our laws were NEVER strong enough to fight what has happened to this country. The laws were meant to ensure the freedom of AMERICAN CITIZENS, who were protected by the border hopping criminals.
Now, articles like these suggest that ALL Americans OUGHT to be fighting for the rights of these criminal invaders!
Are you kidding me?!
The citizens of this country want these parasites GONE! We want them gone because THEY have stolen MORE from us than our freedom.
These foreigners deserve NOTHING from this country. Period.
**protected FROM the border hopping criminals!
The only parasites are the American people who overran and invaded Mexican lands over a hundred and fifty years ago and occupied them. These so called “foreign” agents are simply the descendants of the original owners of the land coming home.
If we didn’t have an illegal immigration problem this wouldn’t be a problem. See how that works. Just like the clintons said. Just like what bill said @ 01:03:10 transcript of his state of the union in 95.
Its needs to stop!
MAGA2020
Deport every American not carrying a U.S. passport.
That would be a great majority of the country as many Americans are so ego centric they don’t bother to apply for a passport because they never step foot outside the country.
The nation has been invaded for decades. This is a non-military, temporary solution. The other choice is martial law to route out all the invaders. That would be no fun.
And you wonder why tourists have dumped the US as a viable place to visit? Truthfully who would want to under these circumstances?
It appears that Activist Post wants to censor my comment. It has happened before. It’s because I talk about the jus and the bybl
No papers come with me…