Anna Frangiosa and her partner were getting ready to board their Boston-bound Greyhound bus at the Burlington airport shortly before noon on May 3 when they saw something that struck them as unusual.
Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were standing by the bus door, asking passengers as they boarded about their citizenship, Frangiosa recalled in a phone conversation Wednesday.
“Hi, we’re Border Patrol, we are just asking everyone what country they’re a citizen of,” they said, according to Frangiosa.
Her partner responded, “this one,” she said. When they looked to her, she paused, she recalled. Her partner then said she also was from the United States.
Then the agents stepped out of the way and they were allowed to board.
“It made me all feel very uncomfortable, especially because the bus wasn’t crossing any borders,” Frangiosa said, who posted about the experience on Facebook.
Border Patrol checks on domestic transportation routes are not new, though awareness of them seems to have grown recently, especially as cellphone videos of agents asking passengers on trains or buses are shared over social media.
A Greyhound spokesperson said that the searches have become more frequent, though did not have statistics to back up the observation.
It’s not the first report of such searches occurring in Vermont. Last summer, Border Patrol agents reportedly boarded a Greyhound bus from Boston in White River Junction at 2 a.m. and asked about passengers’ citizenship, requesting identification from some, according to the Valley News.
Frangiosa, a Philadelphia resident who was visiting Vermont, said she was not asked to produce identification by the agents at the bus stop last week, and she did not see any other passengers offer documents.
One Border Patrol agent boarded the bus and briefly spoke to a passenger, who Frangiosa said spoke in accented English.
Frangiosa said that, in the moment, she felt suddenly uncertain about whether she could refuse to answer the agents’ questions. She said she is familiar with her rights when dealing with a police officer, but the interaction with the federal immigration authorities threw her.
“Oh this is Border Patrol,” she said she thought at the time. “Do I have the same rights?”
Stephanie Malin, a spokesperson for Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol, said that the agency carries out transportation checks “when and where there is an operational benefit.”
She did not respond to a follow-up inquiry about what factors constitute “operational benefit.”
Malin confirmed that there were transportation checks in Burlington on May 2 and 3. She said there were no arrests during that time.
Federal law allows Border Patrol to work within a “reasonable distance” from the border, spelled out as 100 miles from the boundary or the coast.
“Although most Border Patrol work is conducted in the immediate border area, agents have broad law enforcement authorities, including the authority to question individuals, make arrests, and take and consider evidence,” a CBP spokesperson said.
According to James Duff Lyall, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, the federal agency is not upfront about the extent of their authority when they are not on the border.
“The federal government is actively misleading people about what agents, armed federal agents, can do in their communities,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
ACLU-VT joined other chapters in sending a letter to Greyhound asking the company to bar agents from boarding their buses to question passengers about their citizenship.
Lyall said court cases have established clear limits on the agency’s authority when conducting operations away from the border. He has argued that companies are not required to let agents on board, and said that individuals have protections against searches.
Border Patrol, he said, tends to “imply that they can essentially do anything.” They do have authority to conduct operations within 100 miles of the border, he said.
“But that doesn’t mean they can do anything,” he said.
Lanesha Gipson, a spokesperson for Greyhound, said Wednesday that the company has “seen an increase” in the frequency of Border Patrol agents boarding buses.
“However, we’re unable to provide numbers to quantify the increase,” she said.
According to Gipson, the company believes it must allow officers on board to comply with federal laws.
“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,” she said.
