US Border Patrol Confrontation Videos Go Viral Cristina Costantini - Univision News
go to original April 5, 2013

Thanks to YouTube, there’s one thing that both Tea Partiers and Latino civil rights advocates are getting behind.

In the endless repository that is this video hub, there are hundreds of clips, which together have garnered millions of views, of Americans of all ethnicities refusing to comply with inland immigration checks. These checks are conducted by border patrol agents, but it turns out plenty of people think the suspicionless stops are in violation of their constitutional rights.

Technically speaking, immigration checkpoints are allowed to exist up to 100 “air” miles from the border, based on a 1976 Supreme Court decision. However, drivers who are part of this YouTube movement say if they are not crossing a border, they should be able to freely travel within their own country without being questioned by federal agents. Still, others say the random stops encourage racial profiling and disproportionately target individuals who are Latino. Both the constitutional defenders and Latino activists hope that by posting videos to YouTube they will help raise awareness of the alleged injustice.

Much of their frustration also stems from the rapid growth of the U.S. Border Patrol and the proliferation of inland checkpoints. The agency has quintupled in size since the mid-80’s, from 4,000 agents to 20,000 agents. Growing pains include a recent spike in corruption and abuse charges.

Each video pretty much goes like this: A car pulls up to an inland border checkpoint, then, a border patrol agent approaches the vehicle and asks whether the driver is an American citizen.

“That’s my business, can I go on my way now?” says one man. “What’s the purpose of this stop? Who do you work for? Am I free to go?,” asks another man.

Then things really get heated, as both driver and agent descend into the type of intellectual arguments usually reserved for law school seminars. Drivers often begin by citing constitutional amendments which protect against compelled speech and against unreasonable search and seizure. In turn, agents often reiterate that the driver must state their citizenship at risk of being “taken into secondary” (which means they must pull their car into another parking station to be further questioned and/or detained.)

Read our whole piece on the phenomenon and the surrounding debate regarding constitutional rights here.

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