Greyhound Lines, one of the nation’s leading bus companies, announced it will no longer allow agents from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to stop and check its buses for illegal immigrants across the nation and in Florida.
Under federal law, border agents can perform routine checks on Greyhound buses without a warrant. But Greyhound now insists law enforcement personnel will not be able to board its private buses without the company’s consent.
Greyhound Will No Longer Allow Law Enforcement Check For Illegal Immigrants on Buses
Basically Greyhound just told ICE they can’t come in their terminal without a warrant. Fine, that is legally right.
Now a simple DUI checkpoint OUTSIDE the terminal, a couple of drug-sniffing dogs doing the rounds and if they give a hit (and if you have rode a Greyhound bus, you know they will) and everybody is detained and searched.
Worse yet. Same scenario in a regular bus stop in the middle of nowhere and do you know how long does it take to check everybody’s ID? And Yehaaw Junction is not quite prime real state Palm Beach County.
Go woke…
Hat Tip Clark V
No fan of asset seizure laws; however, if the feds find drugs (almost certain) on a bus, can they seize the bus? That could get spendy quick.
You would think it would be pretty easy for the Feds to get a standing warrant if there’s a history of {whatever they’re looking for} on all or select buses.
Choose your battles wisely, lefties. There are some you’re just not going to win.
It may be that standing warrants have been used, but they clearly violate the plain letter of the Constitution.
… no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
A “standing warrant” violates at least three and probably all four of the requirements listed.
Greyhound hasn’t thought this through. They run buses through BP checkpoints all the time. And federal law (agree with it or disagree) allows BP to board such vehicles for the express purpose of checking immigration and citizenship (baggage searches and the like, rightly, require warrant/probable cause or permission).
Refusal to allow such will result in… “unpleasantness” for the company.
People still take Grayhound? I just assumed that everyone on a bus was either a retiree on their way to Vegas or just released from Prison.
Retirees going to Vegas do charters with luxury buses
Good for Greyhound. I’m no fan of illegal immigrants but the federal government can’t violate citizens rights to find and stop them. Immigration checks like that and DUI stops both violate the Fourth Amendment.
Remember the Fourth Amendment also protects gun owners from harassment so we should not be so quick to cheer for its violation because we have another policy we love.