Suspicionless DHS Drug Checkpoints Inside America
Putting to bed the lie that internal Border Patrol checkpoints are immigration checkpoints, this video clearly shows that the Department of Homeland Security routinely uses so-called immigration checkpoints as a pretext to look for contraband including drugs, guns and currency.
In this video, I’m initially greeted by the stopping Border Patrol agent by name. The agent never asks my immigration status. Additionally, other Border Patrol agents on the South side of the checkpoint yell out my name as well.
While I’m being detained at primary by an agent who knows who I am along with my immigration status, a Customs & Border Protection K9 team is going to work on the passenger side of my vehicle sniffing for illegal contraband. The K9 handler isn’t a Border Patrol agent. Rather, he’s a Customs and Border Protection agent normally assigned to Ports of Entry where dogs are trained to search for drugs, guns and currency either entering or leaving the country at the actual border.
Why was this Customs unit being used at a so-called immigration checkpoint over 40 miles North of the border?
To make the legal issues clear, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled Border Patrol checkpoints inside the country must be limited in scope to brief immigration queries with any further detention or searching requiring consent or probable cause. Since there was obviously no question regarding my immigration status in the video, the sole purpose for the detention was clearly contraband interdiction.
This removes any ambiguity regarding the primary purpose of the stop and detention.
One possible explanation as to why a CBP K9 team was being utilized at an internal immigration checkpoint well inside the country along a road that never intersects the border, instead of a port of entry, is an expansion of the program discussed in this blog entry: https://www.checkpointusa.org/blog/in…
For more information regarding suspicionless checkpoints in America, see: https://www.checkpointusa.org
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