SAN ANTONIO – If you’re entering Texas from Mexico, you are required to respond to Border Patrol agents or face delays, and even deportation.
But some motorists are challenging those checkpoints along Interstate 35 in Laredo and beyond.
A montage of home videos is making the rounds on YouTube, where the question, “Are you an American citizen?” goes unanswered and federal officers are challenged.
“Do you mind rolling down the window?” the agent asks in the video.
“That’s as far as I want to roll it down, sir,” answers one driver.
“Am I being detained? Am I free to go?” asks another.
(Watch complete YouTube video below.)
Professor, immigration lawyer and former State Department official, Anne Ohlrich, says voluntary checkpoints are just that: voluntary.
“I had a lot of students from the valley, who were very scared to pass that checkpoint," she said.
Ohlrich said, “Just because an officer stops you because you might have darker skin, or you have a beard, or your car is dirty…that’s not reasonable cause to suspect that you’re smuggling aliens or smuggling narcotics or weapons or anything else.”
