After four years of Freedom of Information Act litigation, the ACLU has
prevailed and forced the Customs and Border Patrol to release 1,000
pages’ worth of training documents in which new agents learn when they
can stop people and what they can do after they stop them.
The documents are a window into the CBP’s legal gamesmanship, in which
the flimsiest of pretenses are spun into legal excuses to stop, search,
question and detain people within 100 miles of the US border and in any
city with an international airport.
Counsel for CBP has cherry-picked legal precedents to produce a
kafka-esque litany of excuses for stops, including being close to the
border, being on a “known smuggling route,” driving “inconsistent with
local traffic patterns,” being “from out of the area,” having a covered
cargo area; paying “undue attention to the agent’s presence,” avoiding
“looking at the agent,” slowing down on seeing the agent, being dirty,
etc.
The documents also shed light on CBP surveillance activities, though much of this section is redacted.
Of particular interest are the revelations of the CPB’s shadowy “city
patrol,” which does not target people who’ve made illegal border
crossings.
Also interesting is the CBP’s belief that it can force any civilian to
operate on its behalf on penalty of a $1,000 fine (previously the CBP
has used this authority to force doctors to perform medically
unnecessary rectal examinations, a practice now banned by the courts).
