Several days ago I made a short visit to my hometown of Laredo, Texas, where I was reminded of the police state that federal immigration officials and drug-war officials have long imposed and enforced against people living or traveling along the border.
I rented a car in San Antonio and traveled south to Laredo, which is located on the Texas-Mexico border, on Interstate Highway 35. About 25 miles or so north of Laredo, there is an immigration-control and drug-war checkpoint for people traveling north out of Laredo toward San Antonio. Apparently, U.S. officials are not concerned with illegal immigrants traveling into Laredo from the north or drug dealers coming south to sell drugs to Laredoans because there is no checkpoint for people traveling south into Laredo.
That checkpoint has been there since I was a teenager. By now, Laredoans have become accustomed to it, just as people living in foreign police states become accustomed to the many acts of tyranny that are imposed on them.
But for a traveler who leaves Laredo not knowing of the checkpoint, it’s got to be a surreal experience.
Most everyone is accustomed to encountering an immigration-drug-war checkpoint when he crosses from Mexico into the United States.
But let’s say that you fly into Laredo and decide to rent a car and drive back. It’s your first time to the border area.You never enter Mexico. You start driving back on IH 35 north toward San Antonio. Just as you go over the crest of a hill, you see up ahead a big permanent immigration checkpoint, just like the one at the international bridge that is located on the border, only not as large.
I’ll guarantee: It will be a surreal sight for anyone not expecting it. The traveler’s first thought is: Am I in Mexico? Remember: This checkpoint is not for people crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States. This is a checkpoint about 25 miles inside the United States. It is a domestic passport/drug-war checkpoint, just like they have in communist and other totalitarian countries.
People passing through this checkpoint are required to show their papers, which is what a passport is all about. U.S. officials also have the full, unfettered authority to conduct a complete search of your vehicle. Drug-war dogs have become a familiar sight at the checkpoint.
On reaching the checkpoint, the driver is expected to lower his window. An immigration official asks, “Are you an American citizen?” If the driver is an Anglo who speaks without an accent, he will be permitted to proceed without further ado. If a person is dark-skinned—as the majority of Mexican-Americans are along the border—and if he is unable to speak English, which characterizes a large number of Mexican-Americans along the border, he had better have his papers with him. If he doesn’t, he will not be permitted to proceed north. Most likely, he will be arrested and transported to a detention center.
Remember: All this is being done to people who have never entered Mexico, including American citizens. They are traveling entirely within the United States. They are being stopped, interrogated, and searched, all without any judicially issued warrant and without any suspicion that they have committed a crime.
When I was growing up, there was no checkpoint for travelers going east to Corpus Christi. Obviously that posed a problem because illegal immigrants and drug smugglers could simply travel east and then north.
The obvious solution to that problem would have been another checkpoint. For some reason, they didn’t do that. Instead, they imposed a system of roving Border Patrol checkpoints, whereby the Border Patrol would simply stop vehicles whenever they wanted and subject drivers to interrogations and searches. When I was in high school, I was arbitrarily stopped by an agent, who ordered me to open my trunk. He had no warrant. He had no reason to believe that I was committing a crime. No probable cause. No reasonable suspicion. Just an arbitrary, capricious exercise of tyrannical power.
Most people dutifully comply. I didn’t. When I declined to open the trunk, he gave me a choice: Open the trunk or follow him back to immigration headquarters in Laredo where the trunk would be forcibly opened. I should have stood my ground and followed him back but I was meeting some friends at the beach and didn’t want to be delayed for a few hours. I complied with his directive. He didn’t find any illegal aliens, drugs, or anything else.
But given the law of averages, they sometimes would hit on some vehicle smuggling illegal immigrants or drugs. To satisfy the Supreme Court’s “reasonable suspicion” requirement for searches of vehicles, they would just manufacture justifications for having stopped that particular vehicle, such as “The vehicle was riding too law.” Or “The vehicle was riding too high.” Or “It was going too fast.” Or “It was going to slow.” Or “The driver looked nervous.” Or “Broken tail light.” Whenever the excuse was challenged in the federal courts, federal judges have almost always deferred to the immigration-drug-war gendarmes. Those immigration-drug-war roving Border Patrol checkpoints have been among the biggest assaults on liberty, privacy, and the Fourth Amendment in U.S. history.
On my recent trip, I was traveling east to Corpus Christi, which I hadn’t done in more than 20 years. Imagine my surprise to find a permanent immigration checkpoint, just like to the one for travelers headed north. Approaching the immigration-drug-war officials (and their drug-war dog), I dutifully lowered my window and responded “Yep” when asked whether i was a U.S. citizen. The gendarmes waved me through without incident.
By the way, many years ago I traveled to Cuba, which, as everyone knows, is headed by a communist-totalitarian regime. It might interest Americans to know that they have the same types of police-state highway checkpoints in Cuba that they have in Laredo and other parts of the American Southwest.