Immigration checks on buses seen as threat to civil liberties

Immigration officers were blasted Friday by Broward County’s congressional delegation for boarding a bus in Fort Lauderdale on Jan. 19 and taking into custody a Jamaican woman whose tourist visa had expired.

The legislators joined with 15 other House members in saying they were appalled by the action they saw as a threat to civil liberties.

They are demanding a comprehensive review of the rule that allows U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents to board vehicles within 100 miles of a U.S. border to check passenger documents. In Florida, that covers the whole state, officials said.

“[A]rbitrary and disruptive enforcement actions like this do not make our communities safer. Rather, they waste taxpayer resources, cruelly dehumanize people who have not committed any crimes, and erode our fundamental rights. Identification is not required to ride a bus from one Florida city to another,” their joint statement said.

On Jan. 19, federal agents boarded a Greyhound bus in Fort Lauderdale, asked passengers for identification and detained the woman after finding her visa had expired. A video of the incident posted by the Florida Immigrant Coalition went viral last weekend.

The woman was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Coalition members said the woman

had been dropped off at the bus station by her daughterin-law, and the family didn’t hear from her later.

Greyhound officials said the company did not initiate the search and it has to comply with all government-affiliated personnel.

Friday’s joint statement included U.S. Reps. Ted Deutch, Alcee Hastings, Debbie Wasserman Schultz

and Frederica Wilson, all Democrats.

It said the House members support strengthening our border protections, but wanted a new look at where agents have the authority to board vehicles.

“The 100-mile border zone ….undercuts the rights for citizens and legal residents to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures,” the representatives said. “In Florida, this arbitrary zone puts everyone in the state under constant

threat of stops, interrogations and searches without even the most basic due process protections.”

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Miami took into custody more than 6,000 people last year in Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. That was almost double the 3,534 during the prior year, according to agency figures.