It still doesn't answer the question: how will CBP react if they ask for a passport and you are one of millions of American citizens who have never had a passport?

You are not quite correct. The requirement is to carry your alien registration or alien registration card. The alien registration card is in fact the LPR card. This is why LPR card holders very often got an admission stamp in their passport that was notated ARC.

The alien registration the law refers to is your I-94. If you are admitted to the United States as a non-immigrant you are required to carry your registration document. Again, this was the I-94. However, now that I-94's are going to be paperless, the only registration document that you will have is your passport containing your admission stamp with the admitted to date.

There are numerous references to this that can be found. They most often come from schools because the schools closely guard their ability to be approved to admit foreign exchange students

FB

http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/8/12/II/VII/1304

https://www.federalregister.gov/arti...ctronic-format

http://www.visaservices.duke.edu/TravelWithinUS.html

http://www.nafsa.org/uploadedFiles/I94carryadvisory.pdf

In a way, you are both somewhat correct in your assessments. It is correct that any possession of MJ is illegal by Federal Law so in theory if a CBP Officer or Agent finds you in possession of it you technically can be arrested. However, there are minimum thresholds that have to be exceeded in most cases for the AUSA's office to prosecute. If you don't have an amount that exceeds those thresholds the case will go state by having the CBP officer or agent commissioned in the local jurisdiction the CBP Officer or Agent can work with the state or local DA and prosecute the case in state and local courts.

This means the CBP Officer or Agent does not have to wait for local response. He can book or cite and move on to the next activity. This saves time and effort for both the Federal Agency and the Local one. This is because even if the Federal Officer or Agent turns the case over to locals or state authorities, he or she still has to go to court and testify if the arrestee fights the charge.

FB

Most of the time, at a Border Patrol checkpoint, the agent will take your verbal assertion that you are a US Citizen and move on to the next vehicle. He or she will take into account your mannerisms, reactions, vehicle, etc to determine if anything warrants further investigation.

This is no different then what a traditional law enforcement officer does in any interaction with the public. In the course of that interaction, if the officer develops reasonable suspicion the interaction becomes an investigative detention.

FB

Deleted. Tried to engage in honest dialogue. By myself.

Again, what you assume will happen is not the same as what happens in reality and what you believe to be correct is not.

The permanent Border Patrol checkpoints we are speaking about are just as covered by video as Ports of Entry are. However, as I have told you before video is not the end all be all of evidence. I can show you numerous videos that you would swear all show misconduct on the part of authorities. This would be incorrect and was proven to be incorrect after further investigation. That part doesn't make the same impression because it doesn't increase ratings or readership.

Your assumption that if it goes beyond one question the Officer or Agent is suspicious is again incorrect. If the Officer or Agent becomes suspicious, he or she is going to secondary the individual based on the reasonable suspicion that he or she has developed. The questions the officer or agent ask is still at the level of a encounter and not a investigative detention. Again, this is no different than a traditional traffic stop or any interaction the public has with law enforcement consensual or otherwise. The LEO is allowed to ask questions without any suspicion at all.

You are entitled to define "bad time" anyway that you wish. However, how you define a bad time has no bearing at all on how the officer goes about what he is legally allowed to do. Your assumption and definition is based on an incorrect belief concerning how these issues work and are resolved.

We are talking about basic law enforcement 101. It doesn't matter if it is Federal, State, or Local. Things such as reasonable suspicion and probable cause do not have hard and fast definitions. The courts have purposefully avoided making those determinations because they have recognized that these topics tend to be dynamic. They change depending upon the circumstances that present in each and every case. Everything is a totality of the circumstances. The courts have recognized that even innocent acts taken in concert with other facts can lead to an inference that criminal activity is present. Obviously, this is not always the case. That is why these cases are measured by what the officer or agent knows at the time. The officer's or agent's training and experience enter into the equation with what the officer or agent knows at the time to determine if happened was reasonable. That is the key. If it was reasonable for an officer or agent with training and experience not necessarily the individual stopped, the bystanders, or you.

This is not a perfect system. You are looking for a 100 percent guaranty that someone that is not doing anything wrong is not going to be subject to a secondary inspection or a investigative detention. That is not possible nor is the expectation that it is possible a reality. The legal system meaning the court recognize that it is not possible so there are checks and balances in place to resolve any disputes that arise. However, those checks and balances do not take place on the side of the road or at a checkpoint. They take place in the legal system.

It is not uncommon for a US Citizen at a Border Patrol checkpoint to not be able to provide documentation of US Citizenship. That fact alone is not going to rise to the level of reasonable suspicion let alone probable cause for arrest. It can be used with other factors to consider if the circumstances rise to the level of reasonable suspicion. It is conceivable and has happened that a US Citizen has been detained because they could not provide documentation. There were other factors present. The officer or agent is not expected or required to be correct 100 percent of the time. The officer or agent just has to have acted reasonably as decided by the legal system.

Again, the officer or agent does NOT have to explain that to you if you are being detained for investigation nor if the officer has developed PC for an arrest he does not have to tell you what that is. Those things happen in the legal system after the arrest.

FB

You're asking me to prove a negative?

If you think there's a law requiring all non-citizens to carry passports or GC's then feel free to cite it. GC's, yes, they're required to be carried (~Title 8 � 1304) but not passports for certain groups of legal residents that don't get GC's. Like, as I already said, L or H visa holders. There are others, but I can't be bothered thinking about it at this stage of the day.

Or the print out from the CBP website. I94 /= Passport /= ARC. I'm making a distinction that I think you've missed: I specifically said ARC's and passports. I didn't exclude I94's. You're conflating 3 separate things when you say I'm not quite correct.

Actually, it makes me think of an interesting possibility: some people out of status but with a lawful right to remain can't (under the section you quoted) always prove they are in the US legally. They may not have anything available that acknowledges it, and certainly not anything that counts under 1304. All they might have is a 485 receipt, which, IIRC, specifically says it does not confer status. Eg. I94 expired while they await approval for PR or, say, extended H1. Implicitly, an EAD might count (don't have one to hand to see what it says these days) because that's all they might have. Hmm. Something for me to check on Monday.

Ghods, US immigration is screwed up.

have you considered calling a CBP office and asking them directly?

Firebug4, again thanks for your responses to these and other threads, as always your posts have been very professional, precise and to the point and very informative.

You have earned my respect..

Mr. Elliott

Which is dumb and retaliatory. What idiot CBP agent thinks someone giving them a hard time is here illegally or smuggling drugs? The real bad guys either off road and avoid the checkpoints and try to get through as inconspicuously as possible. They aren't adversarial.

You are wrong. The law was cited by link several posts above. All non-immigrants are required to carry their registration document. That was the I-94 until recently due to the I-94 going paperless. The registration document is now the admission stamp which is in the passport. Again, see the link to the Federal register to see the addition to the regulation.

FB

All of that is why the law does not specify passport, LPR card, or I-94. It does specify registration document. That is because there are many types of registration documents. While some one that is adjusting status doesn't have immigration status they are still legally present and they do have a registration document. Seeing that I have arrested and successfully prosecuted for this specific statute I have a pretty good working knowledge of what it does and doesn't do.

US Immigration law can be quite confusing. That is why some of the information that you keep posting as correct is in fact incorrect.

FB

Deleted.

You lost me along the way somewhere. Where did I say anything about someone giving the officer a hard time? The quote you have used for this post was in reference to interaction between the public and law enforcement in general. It was not specific to Border Patrol agents nor checkpoints.

To address your statement, I will say this. Border Patrol agents are very aware of the attempts to circumvent the checkpoints. There are strategies in place that counter those attempts. As for smugglers not being adversarial, that would be an incorrect assumption. It is not limited to smugglers either. People that are breaking the law very often will become adversarial as an attempt to distract the officer or get the officer doubting what he has already discovered. In many cases, getting adversarial can have the exact opposite effect than the individual expects. This is because it actually is a common tactic.

You only have to look in this very thread for that information. It has been stated that in video's if you stand up to the officer they will back down. That can be true. I obviously do not have direct knowledge in those instances but I would bet that in the majority of those examples the agent was new or newly rotated to a checkpoint from the line. The point being that bad guys know this too and do attempt to use that to their advantage.

The agent is encouraged to know the parameters in which he or she is required to operate in. The agent is trained that as long as he is operating within those legal parameters he can ignore the bluster or "the hard time" the individual may be giving him. It is not supposed to effect how he goes about his tasks one way or the other. If it did, and unfortunately it sometimes does, it would be used to get things by him or her.

The act of a law enforcement officer developing reasonable suspicion is not retaliatory. This is because people do not go around wearing signs saying they are bad guys and the offense that they are committing. The officers are also not mind readers so they must attempt to obtain the information in order to catch the bad guys. The officers have a set of rules that they are required to play this game by. The vast majority of officers play by those rules , are much more familiar about how those rules work then the general public, and are very leery of the consequences for breaking those rules.

FB