Following up on a widely publicized raid on a passenger bus in White River Junction last year, the ACLU of Vermont has joined with the ACLU in other states in urging the Greyhound line to reconsider its policy of allowing border patrol agents onboard its buses.
On Wednesday, the state’s ACLU affiliate joined with nine other state affiliates in signing a letter urging Greyhound to stop allowing U.S. Customs and BorderProtection agents to board buses at random and question passengers about their citizenship and immigration status.
In the letter, the ACLU noted a recent increase in reports of “indiscriminate CBP ‘immigration checks'” on Greyhound buses throughout the country. Greyhound, still based in Dallas but a subsidiary of FirstGroup, a company in the UK, boasts of 3,800 destinations in America.
The ACLU letter refers to a raid in August last year, in which agents boarded a bus from Boston that was making a scheduled stop in White River Junction.
“The agents would not allow anyone to leave the bus, asking the passengers their citizenship and checking the identification of people who had ‘accents or were not white,'” the ACLU wrote, citing reporting in the newspaper the Valley News.
Rather than roll over, the essence of the ACLU letter was, Greyhound should err on the side of supporting its passengers’ Fourth Amendment rights, which protect against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
“If [Greyhound] wants to maintain the support of its customer base, it should stand up for its customers’ rights and push back,” Jay Diaz, a staff attorney with the Vermont ACLU, said in an interview.
In a statement to VTDigger, Greyhound said it understands the concerns of the ACLU and its customers, but “is required to comply with the law.”
“Greyhound has opened a dialogue with the Border Patrol to see if there is anything that can be done to balance the enforcement of federal law with the dignity and privacy of our valued customers,” the statement said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that its agents have broad law enforcement authority and are not limited to operating within in a specific area of the country.
Citing federal law, the agency said immigration officers can conduct warrantless searches in vehicles within 100 air miles of the border. White River Junction is just more than 100 miles by interstate from the border crossing at Stanstead, Quebec.
The ACLU’s Diaz said the border patrol’s interpretation of the law is unconstitutional.
“For border patrol to say that they have carte blanche to do so-called border searches anywhere in the whole state of Vermont … it’s simply untenable and contravenes everything that our Constitution stands for,” he said.
U.S. Customs and BorderProtection did not respond to questions about its search of the bus in White River Junction last summer. Nor would it comment on the number of bus searches agents have conducted in Vermont since 2017.
The raid on Aug. 1, 2017, as reported by the Valley News, was at 2 a.m. Border agents boarded a Greyhound bus, and held back two women to question their immigration status. No one was charged or arrested following the search, according to the report.
U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy and U.S. Rep. Peter Welch were highly critical of the search at the time.
“I’m concerned whenever Vermonters are challenged or when their travels are routinely disrupted without any suspicion,” Leahy told the Valley News.
“This seems to be a way to show action in light of President Trump’s executive orders. It is a waste of time and taxpayers’ money.”
