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San Diego teacher detained after refusing to answer BP question

San Diego teacher detained after refusing to answer BP question

Old Jul 27, 2017, 12:45 am
  #46  
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Someone mentioned the constitution-free zone - here's the ACLU map. You'll notice, that it's not about the US-Mexican border...

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Old Jul 27, 2017, 12:56 am
  #47  
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Originally Posted by chollie
As I understand it, our local laws allow LE to stop anyone at any time to demand they identify themselves. You have to satisfy the officer's request somehow. Technically, you do not have to show ID - unless the cop claims he doubts your identity, at which point you can be detained if you can't immediately produce an acceptable ID.
I don't think this is true in general in the USA, unlike in many foreign countries that require identity cards (and also require foreign nationals to carry passports or a substitute document such as an EU identity card). Of course, an exception would be if you're driving. Another exception would be when you enter many federal facilities. Plus, if you're flying, TSA security is generally easier if you have a government issued photo ID card.
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Old Jul 27, 2017, 6:53 am
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I think the rules in the US apply to citizens. AFAIK, permanent residents and other non-citizens must carry a green card/passport/I94/etc. Here are a couple of links:

http://www.nc-immigration-attorney.c...im-in-the-usa/
https://www.cilawgroup.com/news/2014...carry-with-me/
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Old Jul 27, 2017, 8:09 am
  #49  
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Originally Posted by cafeconleche
I think the rules in the US apply to citizens. AFAIK, permanent residents and other non-citizens must carry a green card/passport/I94/etc. Here are a couple of links:

http://www.nc-immigration-attorney.c...im-in-the-usa/
https://www.cilawgroup.com/news/2014...carry-with-me/
That's correct regarding what non-citizens must keep on their person. However, the protections of the Bill of Rights, being limitations on government power, apply to all people, citizen or non-citizen.
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Old Jul 27, 2017, 8:22 am
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I'll be transiting the still-staffed one on US-77 on my way back up from South Padre Island in a few weeks. Good times...
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Old Jul 27, 2017, 9:01 am
  #51  
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The Checkpoints and Borders Policy Debate forum is the place to discuss travel security policy. It is not the place for a general political debate. Political discourse which is not directly related to travel and border security policy belongs in OMNI/PR.

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Old Jul 27, 2017, 10:41 am
  #52  
 
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Originally Posted by WilcoRoger
Someone mentioned the constitution-free zone - here's the ACLU map. You'll notice, that it's not about the US-Mexican border...

Wonder why they decided the zone applies to the region looping around the south of Lake Michigan (Chicago, etc.), since all of Lake Michigan is within the US and is NOT a coastal border (unlike the other Great Lakes)?

By the same logic, there should be a 100-mile zone around the Great Salt Lake too, right?
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Old Jul 27, 2017, 12:50 pm
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Originally Posted by Maxwell Smart
Wonder why they decided the zone applies to the region looping around the south of Lake Michigan (Chicago, etc.), since all of Lake Michigan is within the US and is NOT a coastal border (unlike the other Great Lakes)?

By the same logic, there should be a 100-mile zone around the Great Salt Lake too, right?
My guess has always been that the 100-miles starts at border or a land/water point of entry and that there are many such ports along the shore of Lake Michigan. If the 100-miles were based on territorial waters and not the actual border, the zones around the coast would extend less than 100 miles inland.

I also suspect, but do not know for certain, that the zone should extend up the Mississippi river since I think there are recognized ports of entry along the river.

I doubt the specific boundaries of the constitution-free zone have ever been tested in court. And I suspect if DHS wanted to, they would claim anywhere within 100 miles of a theoretical air port of entry (i.e., runway) was constitution free.
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Old Jul 27, 2017, 7:47 pm
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Originally Posted by studentff
My guess has always been that the 100-miles starts at border or a land/water point of entry and that there are many such ports along the shore of Lake Michigan. If the 100-miles were based on territorial waters and not the actual border, the zones around the coast would extend less than 100 miles inland.

I also suspect, but do not know for certain, that the zone should extend up the Mississippi river since I think there are recognized ports of entry along the river.

I doubt the specific boundaries of the constitution-free zone have ever been tested in court. And I suspect if DHS wanted to, they would claim anywhere within 100 miles of a theoretical air port of entry (i.e., runway) was constitution free.
It looks like the 100 miles is calculated as follows:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception [from footnote 5]

287 (a) (3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 66 Stat. 233, 8 U.S.C. 1357(a)(3), which provides for warrantless searches of automobiles and other conveyances "within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States," as authorized by regulations to be promulgated by the Attorney General. The Attorney General's regulation, 8 CFR 287.1, defines "reasonable distance" as "within 100 air miles from any external boundary of the United States."
Full definitions of "external boundary" and "reasonable distance":

https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/287.1

287.1 Definitions.
(a)

(1)External boundary. The term external boundary, as used in section 287(a)(3) of the Act, means the land boundaries and the territorial sea of the United States extending 12 nautical miles from the baselines of the United States determined in accordance with international law.

(2)Reasonable distance. The term reasonable distance, as used in section 287(a) (3) of the Act, means within 100 air miles from any external boundary of the United States or any shorter distance which may be fixed by the chief patrol agent for CBP, or the special agent in charge for ICE, or, so far as the power to board and search aircraft is concerned any distance fixed pursuant to paragraph (b) of this section.
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Old Jul 28, 2017, 4:17 pm
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Originally Posted by COSPILOT
We are losing site that she was asked a simple question and she refused to answer. I don't see how responding is a violation of privacy or civil rights. Are you a United States Citizen? Yes or no.

I see a person looking for 15 minutes of fame, much like every person with a beef toward United Airlines since the Dao incident.
I cannot speak for everyone else, but I personally have not lost sight of the main issue, which is not "answering a simple question", it's "LEOs punitively detaining you for exercising your Constitutional rights under the 4th and 5th Amendments".

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?" was a pretty simple question, too, but look how many innocent lives were destroyed by it because of paranoia and fanaticism.

I must admit, if stopped at one of these Stassi checkpoints, I would immediately answer (through clenched teeth), "Yes, I am a citizen," and be sent on my merry way with a foul taste in my mouth. But I do not begrudge anyone who pushes back to defend the rights of the individual, because the intended results of such defense would benefit us all.

Personal liberties and individual rights are the foundation upon which this country was founded. They are its entire reason for existing, and they are the entire purpose behind having any sort of government at all. When government starts stripping them away for some purported "greater good" or "societal need" or, worst of all, "compelling government interest," we destroy the very thing that makes our country great in the first place. The greater good comes directly from the individual good - you cannot achieve any greater good when you compromise the individual good. It's like building a house with foundation blocks made of wet newspaper instead of concrete - it may look the same, but it'll wash away completely in the first heavy rain, or burn like a torch from a single spark.

Call me crazy, but I'm far more concerned about a government that tells me I have to surrender the things that keep me safe in order to keep me safe, give up the things which keep me free in order to remain free, than with trespassers, drug smugglers, or even terrorists sneaking in through the southern border. Even if these draconian measures like internal immigration checkpoints and invasive searches as a condition of travel worked, which they never have in all of human history, it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best, because we would have destroyed our country's soul to preserve its borders.

In two hundred years we've gone from "Give me liberty or give me death!" to "Anything for security!" Not an improvement, in my humble opinion. Not an improvement at all.

Originally Posted by COSPILOT
In 1790, we didn't have a drug problem...

So what is the answer? Open the border to anyone with a pulse, stop the war on drugs? I don't know of many countries with such a policy, but I'm happy to be corrected. Come here legally or don't come at all.
We're not discussing border policies, we're discussing checkpoints set up 50 or even 100 miles away from the border - as much as a two-hour drive from the border.

I, too, am against illegal immigration, but stripping away the rights and freedoms that this country was specifically created to protect is not, nor has it ever been, the solution to any national problem, be it criminality, immigration, or even potential espionage (ask George Takei or any other victim of our WWII US concentration camps what they think of that kind of solution).

Whatever the solution to illegal border crossings may be, it lies AT THE BORDER, not 100 miles away from it.

Originally Posted by studentff
My guess has always been that the 100-miles starts at border or a land/water point of entry and that there are many such ports along the shore of Lake Michigan. If the 100-miles were based on territorial waters and not the actual border, the zones around the coast would extend less than 100 miles inland.

I also suspect, but do not know for certain, that the zone should extend up the Mississippi river since I think there are recognized ports of entry along the river.

I doubt the specific boundaries of the constitution-free zone have ever been tested in court. And I suspect if DHS wanted to, they would claim anywhere within 100 miles of a theoretical air port of entry (i.e., runway) was constitution free.
Since that map was produced by ACLU and not by DHS, there is no way to know for sure that DHS claims the same area. However, going by the amount of government over-reach in the last century or so, I would not be a bit surprised if DHS looked at that map and said, "Yeah, that seems about right."

It appears to me that ACLU created the orange zone by offsetting a 100-mile buffer from the land mass edges, which is why the zone bends around Lake Michigan and the Chesapeake Bay; bad news for me if DHS uses a similar outline, since it encompasses virtually my entire home state of Maryland.

If DHS's version of the zone is similar to the ACLU map, they could theoretically set up these Stassi Stops anywhere on I-95, from the Canadian border to Miami, since the entire interstate and most of its subsidiaries (like the I-495 Capital Beltway around DC and the I-695 Baltimore Beltway and the I-295 Jacksonville Beltway) are inside the 100-mile zone on the map.

Even using a more logical 100-mile buffer that starts on the actual border - i.e. at the ocean's edge, with no jogs around the Chesapeake, Lake Michigan, or the Outer Banks, at least 2/3 of the I-95 network would still be within the 100-mile zone.
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Old Jul 29, 2017, 1:55 am
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Originally Posted by chollie
I associate it with 'papers, please'. I expect that in foreign dictatorships. I don't expect it and I despise it in my own country.

If it's a pointless trivial exercise, then why are taxpayers footing the bill for this cr*p? What is the ROI on setting up these stops to catch what they failed to catch at the border? 99% harassment of innocent citizens and waste of taxpayers' money, plus it reinforces the growing requirement to identify yourself and produce your documents at any time to any government actor who demands them.
My thoughts also....basically a harassment technique and the verbal version of "papers please".

GOOD for that teacher making her point known.
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Old Jul 29, 2017, 1:57 am
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Originally Posted by COSPILOT
Back to the mom, she decided not answering the simple question and delaying her return (with kids in the car) was a high priority. She is the very teacher I would prefer my kids never be exposed to.
She would be the VERY teacher I would want my kids to be learning from
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Old Jul 29, 2017, 6:53 am
  #58  
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Too bad EVEYONE is not as legal minded as the teacher; if CBP were detaining ALL of "us" maybe this nearly facist policy would cease.
PS: The train from San Diego to the border crosses into the "forbidden zone", does CBP ask for riders to prove their citizenship? Or is it only people who drive in the zone?
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Old Jul 29, 2017, 7:08 am
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This is someone who teaches impressionable kids?

What did you do today?
I wasted the time of Government employees doing their job just because I could.
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Old Jul 29, 2017, 7:10 am
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PS: The train from San Diego to the border crosses into the "forbidden zone", does CBP ask for riders to prove their citizenship? Or is it only people who drive in the zone?

NRR, Your question brings to mind the case of Deborah Davis.
The bus she rode to work crosses the property of the Denver Federal Center, a collection of government offices such as the Veterans Administration, the U.S. Geological Survey, and part of the National Archives. The Denver Federal Center is not a high security area: it's not Area 51 or NORAD.

One day commuting to work by bus, the bus stopped at the gates of the Denver Federal Center. A security guard got on and demanded that all of the passengers on this public bus produce ID. She refused.
The cops shoved her out of the bus, handcuffed her, threw her into the back seat of a police cruiser.

I think the ACLU took her case and won. The police ID request was little more than an obedience test.

Last edited by yandosan; Jul 29, 2017 at 7:18 am
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