Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Patty Murray, D-Wash., are seeking to limit the powers of federal border agents in areas miles away from the border.
Current law gives federal border agents broad authorities within 100 miles of the border region. The bill would cut the border zone by three-quarters.
The current policy enables Border Patrol to carry out a broad range of law enforcement actions miles away from the boundary, including citizenship checks at bus stops and checkpoints on highways.
Passengers on buses and trains in Vermont have reported a series of searches recently.
Border Patrol agents boarded an Amtrak train in White River Junction last month, asking passengers on the train about their citizenship. A few weeks earlier, two agents asked passengers boarding a Boston-bound Greyhound in Burlington about their citizenship.
A Greyhound spokesperson confirmed in May that checks by federal authorities have become more frequent recently.
Border Patrol has carried out a series of checkpoints on well-traveled interstates in New Hampshire. The agency recently set up a checkpoint in northern Maine where they required travelers to tell them their citizenship information, according to reports. The checkpoints have led to immigration arrests and drug seizures.
More than two-thirds of the country’s population lives within the border zone, which includes coastal areas, and almost all of Vermont falls within 100 miles of the border.
Under Leahy and Murray’s proposal, Homeland Security agents would be able to stop vehicles for checks only within 25 miles of the border, down from the current limit of 100 miles. Agents would be restricted on private property at 10 miles from the border, rather than the current 25 miles limit.
Immigration checkpoints, like those on highways and at transit stops, would not be permitted further than 10 miles from the border.
“Vermonters have rightly been concerned about these expanded border zone searches,” Leahy said in a statement. “They believe, as I do, that once inside our country the phrase ‘show me your papers’ does not belong inside the United States of America.”
Murray said that the bill would “reset the balance” between the rights of people who live near borders and law enforcement.
