Around the fourth hour of my detention at the airport, I decided to ask for a lawyer. The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent at the front desk refused. I told him that he can’t indefinitely hold an American citizen. “It’s not indefinite,” he replied. “We’ll let you know.”
That little exchange captures the absolute power that CBP claims over travelers, including Americans, going far beyond any domestic law enforcement interrogation. You don’t have a right to contact a lawyer. Neither do you have a right to know why you’re being detained or what will happen next. It’s not “indefinite” detention; they just won’t tell you what the “definite” part is. Crossing the U.S. border is the closest most Americans will come to experiencing life under the foreign dictatorships I report on.
They are absolutely violating the 4th and 5th Amendments here in multiple respects. Not only does the 4th Amendment require officers to have a reasonable and articulable suspicion of wrong doing to have probable cause for there to be a custodial detention, but the 5th Amendment’s Due Process clause requires police forces to provide an attorney when someone in police custody asks for one. If they weren’t under arrest, then they must have been free to leave. Admittedly, there is a reduction in Constitutional provisions while at the boarder (specifically related to searches & seizures), but they still need to have such suspicions to initiate a detention, and any reduction to the 4th Amendment flatly doesn’t apply to someone’s 5th Amendment’s right to counsel in custodial situations. This is a 1983 claim if I ever saw one.
Becuase they are the gestapo
The CBP agents involved should be punished for violating the rights of an American.
If judges refuse to enact such punishments those judges should be punished.
wHy iS ToURisM dYinG??
Because the feds were somewhere they might go and they wanted to search it while you were away probably without a warrant as usual.
Welcome to the Lawless States of America.
the reason for it is implied by looking into who he is and what he does. he’s not only a journalist but:
Matthew Petti is an assistant editor at Reason and a proud New Jersey native. He has previously reported for the BBC (in Persian and English), The Intercept, The Daily Beast, New Lines magazine, Responsible Statecraft, Middle East Eye, and The National Interest, among other publications. Matthew covers U.S. national security policy and its interactions with American society and domestic politics.
that’s not to defend anything that went on. but we know why he was detained.
Reason.com is a pro-Reaganomics bullshit rag. They may take issue with the border guard detaining American citizens without due process but they don’t have any problem with them doing whatever to anyone else. Fuck those libertarian douche bags. Most of them voted for this nonsense.
This unfortunately, I stopped using reason for many legitimate reasons
Yes, fuck Reason.
But no, don’t kidnap them and put them in cages.
After stamping my wife’s passport around 6:30 a.m., the CBP agent at passport control told me that I had to go “somewhere else.” That meant secondary inspection. I was handed my passport in a locked plastic box with a bright orange lid and pointed toward a seemingly endless corridor. I told my wife to contact the lawyer if it took “too long.”
The waiting room at the end of the corridor was a strange mix of professional courtesy and casual cruelty. I saw agents ask a young man what kind of food they should bring him and reassure an old man that everything will be sorted out. I also saw agents snap at someone who wanted to use the bathroom. “Did you think you could just do that without asking?” an agent shouted as the man walked toward the bathroom door.
This article is the best description I’ve read of what to expect when they flag you
They are absolutely violating the 4th and 5th Amendments here in multiple respects.
Oh wow they’re violating the magic rules?! Trump is COOOKED NOW!!! \s
I can’t wait until November bro.
I am so tired of this shit. I want to see it resolve, good or bad. I’m fucking tired.
Regardless of how the election goes, there will be an absolute shit show after. November is not going to be a fun month.
CBP also has jurisdiction “within 100 miles of the border”, which is where 2/3rds of Americans live - most of the nations cities.
This is clearly a political act to suppress dissent.
Weird that that map notes Toledo but not Cleveland or Columbus which are both in the zone
Thanks for spreading the word haha
The 100-mile border zone derives its authority from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, specifically 8 U.S.C. § 1357(a)(3), which permits CBP agents to conduct warrantless searches and seizures “within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States.”
That extends to intl airports as well. You also don’t have a right to an attorney:
CBP takes the position that travelers do not have the right to an attorney during questioning.
CBP takes the position that travelers do not have the right to an attorney during questioning.
Literally untrue. They really need to look at Miranda v. Arizona, 484 U.S. 436, 467 (1965) (“there can be no doubt that the Fifth Amendment privilege [to an attorney] is available . . . in all settings in which their freedom of action is curtailed in any significant way . . .”).
Supreme Court is currently working on eroding Miranda, so good luck bringing something like this to them now
https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/supreme-court-rejects-promise-miranda-rights
Miranda v. Arizona, 484 U.S. 436
This has nothing to do with CBP or the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. And even if it did, if they believe they don’t have the right, and no one tells them otherwise…then they do.
All settings means all settings
Mmk well that contradicts the legislation but whatever, I won’t argue, I’m not a lawyer.
Miranda came about in '66. You mention legislation that came about in '52. This means the explanation in Miranda would definitely contemplared and applied to that, especially since the Constitution outweighs legislation.
The downside to this avenue is that it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide if you’re right or wrong, which won’t happen until they give you a lawyer…which they don’t want to do.
A Man. A Plan. A Gestapo.
Guantanamo.
Yep. It’s literally authoritarianism, when a leader crafts their enforcement and revenge organizations to treat their own policy as superseding law. Anyone defending this is on the side of fascism or is too stupid to know they are.
…then they do.
no. it does not give them the right to, they just can get away with it.
What’s fun is if they twist things to the point that airports are a border.
International airports already are.
The airport isn’t the border. You may have crossed the border while in the air. Everything else is trying to work around the fact that you can’t have a border check in the air, but the airport isn’t really a border. They made that up (borders are made up, I know, I know)
Also hot air balloons exist so I guess all landing spots good and poor should be the border.
CBP also has jurisdiction “within 100 miles of the border”,
which is where 90% of Canadians live. And they have arrested a Canadian for something that Canadian did in Canada where it was not a crime, to take him back to America to be tried for it there.
Do you have a link or source for that? I don’t doubt it, I’m just interested to read it.
Fortunately, there’s a route that’s open to everyone. I have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all the data that CBP has on me, from agents’ field notes to any automated system hits. However long it takes for CBP to respond, and however heavily they redact the documents, I’m legally entitled to a response. And so are you.
Good to know
It’s not indefinite, we just don’t know when it’s gonna end…
Man, I know they are idiots, but that’s just silly.
Wary of the stories I’ve covered about CBP searching electronics, I didn’t bring a working cellphone with me. Around 10:10 a.m., I walked up to the intake desk for the waiting room and asked to use their landline phone. “Our landline?” the agent replied, confused that I would even ask. I said that I wanted to contact a lawyer. He flat-out refused.
“Since the international arrivals inspection is an administrative function, CBP policy and federal regs do not permit the presence of lawyers during secondary examinations,” CBP spokesman Stephen Sapp tells me. In other words, when I’m under an administrative rather than a criminal investigation, I have fewer rights than someone accused of a crime.
And so much more and worse. Everyone should read the article.
“Oh the people here in this camp aren’t criminals per se, but they aren’t allowed to leave”
See my comment here
Are you white? No? That’s why
Why the fuck should they care? The American justice system is basically defunct by now, exactly how the fascist government wants it to be.
The American justice system
is basicallyhas always been defunctby now, exactly how the fascist governmentwantsdesigned it to be.
There is no longer any moral code and ethics does nothing but stop unbridled profit. It’s pay to play. This has gotten completely out of hand.
There
is no longerhas never been any moral code and ethics
