By David Martin Davies, Texas Public Radio News for Fronteras
SAN ANTONIO – Drive across the Southwest, north of the U.S. Mexico Border, and you are likely to encounter a Border Patrol Checkpoint. These roadside stations are set up to check immigration status and require all traffic to stop. But what happens next is an open question.
When a driver approaches a Border Patrol check point, the drill is to pull off the highway, wait in line, and then a border patrol agent will ask this question:
AGENT: “Are you a U.S. citizen?”
If you answer “yes”, in most instances you’ll soon be back on the road. But what happens if you refuse to answer? That’s what some people are doing and they’ve videotaped themselves doing so. It’s become a YouTube sensation. It’s not the Harlem Shake but motorists shaking off questions from Border Patrol agents.
AGENT: “Are you a U. S. citizen?”
CITIZEN: “That’s my business.”
One video showing a compilation of refusals has over 400,000 views since it was posted just over a month ago. The montage of checkpoint stops shot by the drivers all show them refusing to answer the border patrol’s favorite question.
AGENT: “I’m just asking you for the purposes of immigration, I need to ask you what country you are a citizen.”
CITIZEN: “Am I being detained?”
AGENT: “I’m asking you…”
CITIZEN: “Am I free to go?”
AGENT: “You need to answer my question…”
CITIZEN: “Are you refusing to allow me to go on my way?
And things get downright confrontational.
AGENT: “Are hiding anything in there?”
CITIZEN: “Am I free to go?”
AGENT: “Are you hiding anything in there? We can stay all day here playing your little game.”
CITIZEN: “Ok.”
TERRY BRESSI: “It really is a smack across the face of any liberty loving American.”
Terry Bressi lives in Southern Arizona and writes the blog CheckpointUSA dot ORG. He has videotaped about 250 checkpoint experiences where he has refused to answer Border Patrol questions and posted some on YouTube. He says the video camera is his equalizer.
BRESSI: “My primary purpose in having the video cameras and running while I’m going through a check point is not so I can have cool video to make for YouTube. It’s to protect myself legally.”
Bressi claims without the videotape the border patrol agents would be free to invent probable cause and detain him simply because they don’t like his attitude. Adriana Pinon, a lawyer for the ACLU, says these YouTube videos show what happens when people exercise one of their fundamental rights.
ADRIANA PINON: “One always has the right to remain silent. So in the video you do see people asserting that right and an individual has a constitutional right to remain silent even at a check point.”
The Border Patrol would not comment on tape for the story but said most Americans cooperate at the checkpoint and there’s no indication that there’s a growing number of people refusing to answer their questions. The real issue here is a dispute over whether or not these checkpoints violate the U.S. Constitution. The Border Patrol says the checkpoint do not. Pinon Agrees.
PINON: “The courts have decided that because they are such a brief intrusion upon a person’s liberty, privacy and interests, that it is constitutional.”
But Blogger Bressi disputes that, claiming the checkpoints are unconstitutional because the Supreme Court ruled they should be used only for immigration purposes. He claims the question “are you an American citizen?” is actually a ruse used by the Border Patrol to get drivers to stop, be scanned, tracked, recorded and sniffed by drug dogs, which he says are all violations of the Constitution.
BRESSI: “It’s not border security, its internal security.”
And in fact, constitutional or not, after each of the videotaped confrontations, the Border Patrol does allow drivers who refuse to cooperate – to just drive on out.
CITIZEN: “I should have the freedom to travel unmolested because I am in America here.”
AGENT: “Go ahead Go.”
CITIZEN: “Go ahead and go where?”
AGENT: “Go down the road.”
CITIZEN: “Okay, see you later.”
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