Even the US citizens who may not speak much English and may look freshly arrived? I'd like to see where this law comes from. It means the US has approximately half a million square miles of "show me your papers" land? Maybe if they start harassing Tiffany Escalade as she drives her 750i down the hill in La Jolla on the way to Escada, I won't feel as bad about someone who "happens to look and sound like (s)he might be illegal" being forced to prove his legitimate existence on the trolley.

I couldn't agree with you more. Personally if ICE and other federal agencies concentrated on the companies that employ them and used the courts and fines to make things difficult for them. Instead of these ineffective programs like this.

Note that "international border" includes water, and with that added it it encompasses 2/3rds of the US population.

Yikes, does that mean I'm surrounded by international borders? :confused:

If the agent is halfway competent, in about 5 minutes of conversation.

Link to the ACLU article about the "Constitution Free Zone".

While I understand your point, the term "criminal alien" has a specific definition in CBP/ICE parlance. A criminal alien is an illegal alien with a criminal conviction outside of immigration admin violations.

This is untrue. Cause must be shown, at all times, for any kind of detention outside of a traffic checkpoint, and that detention must be brief (at checkpoint, that is).

So a TSA agent has NO cause to ID anyone at a Trolley stand. (Trolley in this case I believe is a small bus)

A bus is a public conveyance. The BP agent can go anywhere the public can go. They cannot, however, stop the bus without cause (traffic stop). That's beyond public scope. Once on, normal rules apply as to detention.

That's my understanding as to bus checks. We didn't do much bus checking in my area back in my INS days, so please note that's my understanding and is somewhat out of date (many years ago, pre-9/11).

Sounds to me like the TSA and BP did an end run around what is allowable for the BP to do in order to check immigration status of the riders.

How so? BP agents can board and inspect any public conveyance, and I believe that's in the TSA jurisdiction as well. Whether individualized suspicion was met could be debated on a case-by-case basis, but I don't believe that anyone is familiar with those cases so we can't really speak to that. Besides, we're talking about administrative, and not criminal, issues, so things like "probable cause" really don't apply. Cause must be shown should it go to immigration court for formal deportation, but it's not up to the standard of criminal cause.

We may argue about whether it's "right" or the most effacious use of TSA time and personnel, but I don't think we can argue that it was illegal or unconstitutional or beyond the pale.

I was under the assumption by the articles I quoted the "raids" were not conducted on the trolley. According to this opinionated article the BP agents did board the trolley.

In any case does the law allow the TSA to question immigration status or to check IDs outside the airport?

Does the law allow the TSA to do administrative searches outside the airport?

I don't know if its legal, but the TSA did role out VIPR Teams. The TSA can't even get the job done right at the airports, take all of the recent interpretations of the new shoe policy. While the VIPR Teams allow law enforcement to focus on less mundane aspects of security I have serious concerns about them understanding their role and not exceeding that role. Because the proicedures that the TSA operates under remain secret.

I have to say, this whole sequence of events rings my w-t-f alarm.

First, from the 10 news article:
I really hope we're missing some significant context with this segment. I understand how this sounds like potential racial/ethnic profiling. SPOT, and the work BDOs do is strictly behavior based. If, as suggested in the articles, the agents were simply looking at/talking to all the Latino looking people, that would be a serious break from everything I have learned about SPOT.

Second, from the TSA web site:
I don't see where it says that VIPR teams are supposed to be put together for routine law enforcement activities. I don't have a problem with other agencies borrowing TSA personnel to provide assistance for other agencies' operations. If this was a TSA operation, though, I would expect a really good explanation of how illegal aliens were linked to a threat to transportation security.

Third, in the comments from the San Diego News editorial:
I don't like the idea that the public might start thinking that TSA screeners have law enforcement powers or responsibilities. TSA does not give us weapons or training which is necessary to deal with this type of public perception. The law rather severely limits our authority. I think it would be a great harm to the TSO uniformed workforce if the public starts lumping us in with real law enforcement.