[High Praise! to The Real Revo]
I don’t expect anyone to watch this all the way through, because it gets repetitive, but I’m fascinated by it, nonetheless:
[YouTube direct link] (Viewer #489,884)
The fact that the guy with the camera can refuse compliance without consequence tells me that these guys in uniform KNOW they have no right to be doing this.
What frightens me is that, at some point, they’re going to stop taking “no” for an answer.
Keep your powder dry.
The guy definitely has more cojones than I do. (Pardon the little bit of Spanglish lingo there.)
Are they stopping him inside the U.S., and not at a border? Why do they do such a weird, intrusive thing? “I’m asking for the purposes of immigration” — what does that mean?
They have immigration check points all around Arizona and southern California. They stop every car that goes through
Not really a police state. But reminds me of my position on immigration, which is that I don’t think it’s possible to secure the border without liberalizing immigration laws quite a bit (probably to the point where the volume of legal immigration is close to, or exceeds, the current volume of legal + illegal immigration). And that, if you could, you’d need an actual police state along the border to make it happen.
@1 – At one point the guy asks where the border is, and the uniform replies that it’s “40 miles that way” (or something like that).
DHS claims that, for their purposes, the border extends 100 miles inside the actual border:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/02/electronics-border-seizures/
the irony here is that he is relying on the very integrity he says that they don’t have. his passive aggressive attitude worked only because the agents were good guys. with regard to the agricultural checkpoints, i have never understood them, but they have been around a long time. i first saw them in the early 60s when on vacation to the west.
is it early police state? maybe, i know i don’t like it. but baiting the cops in true police state would have had a very different result.
Unfortunately, most of these “agents/cops” have been trampling on rights for so long with things like “random check points” becoming “commonplace” that they need to be reminded that they are overstepping the scope of the law, as these citizens who made the videos are doing.
Sign ze papers, old man!
No wonder we have eleven million illegal aliens in this country if it’s that easy to bullsh!t the boarder guards.
i thought rights only extended to citizens, if they cant prove you are a citizen. how can rights be extended to you? agree on the search thing though.
If these are truly immigration check points aren’t they just enforcing a thick defensive line? so that illegals cant just jump the border when they find one of the holes.
Is this on a drug corridor? Because I remember seeing cops stop old ladies in car on a drug corridor and they found out they were trafficking money in the truck in the tune of 20 million in cash. I think their tail light was out but does that mean the search was illegal because i doubt they got a warrant for that.
Ahhh, but these AREN’T border guards. That’s the point.
And I was wondering when someone was going to ask an agent for his citizenship papers. I thought for sure it would’ve been for Señor Zavala, but they saved it for the end. The agent’s eyeroll as he sent them on was worth the wait.
You Liber(al)tarians can’t have it both ways!
You either want to stop the Flow of Illegals or you want to protect your so-called ‘RIGHT’ to give the finger to the authorities. What’s it gonna be?
First you complain because no one will arrest the damned illegals and then you complain if someone tries to find them. 50 miles from the Border on a major hi-way is WHERE they end up.
Immigration check points aren’t a sign of Nazism. There are far worse things happening in this country than being asked if you are an American.
Fourth Amendment, Carpenter. Fourth Amendment.
Also, we CAN ask that our porous border be secured. It has a finite length. We barely patrol it and when we do, our border agents are often toothless. When they do things to illegal aliens, like shoot them for shooting first, they go to jail. When we find aliens in country, DIS won’t deport them. We give benefits to them for crying out loud! So yes, we can have it both ways. You don’t need a police state to secure a border.
Meanwhile, DHS buys 1.4 billion bullets and 1300 MRAPS AND sets up checkpoints? Yeah, that’s the beginning of a police state. What else could it be? That much ammo would keep the army in bullets for years and they actually shoot! Do you know what an MRAP is? What good could possibly come of this?
I’m still struggling to understand why an anti-Libertarian would haunt a Libertarian website.
Maybe to educate, but there are more effective methods than insult.
. . . humor springs to mind
. . . on a humor website.
“Ahhh, but these AREN’T border guards. That’s the point.”
Then what are they? Bear in mind that DHS and Border Patrol (Immigrations and Customs) are consolidated agencies which both, theoretically, get their authority from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
The reason these checkpoints exist throughout the border states is because illegal aliens have found that they are better able to excape detection by avoiding roads near the border. Instead, they will follow footpaths to pickup points near population centers or rest stops – blending in by numbers – before hitching a ride to their next destination. Also, let’s say that an illegal successfully evades the border patrol at the border – does that mean the border patrol should have no further involvement in the matter because it doesn’t take place on the border? What is the actual width of the border?
Living in Arizona and dealing with the constant stream of illegals, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to present ID upon request by a uniformed federal or state officer. How else do you propose they determine legal presence? To the best of my knowledge, we don’t actually have a right to drive on public roads – a driver’s license is a revocable document which offers a privilege of using publicly-maintained roads. I guess the question then becomes whether DHS / Border Patrol has the authority to demand / suspend / revoke a driver’s license.
This is a major problem with America today. We’ve gotten so far away from our Government being our employees that some among us have begun to think of the Government as our Boss, who offers us privileges as long as we comply.
We paid for those publicly maintained roads. They do not belong to the Government they belong to the citizens of the United States. A Driver’s License, regardless of the current reality, should only be able to revoked for a legitimate and already established by law reason not because some Government agent doesn’t like your tone and so decides you no longer deserve the “privilege” to use something you paid for.
“Living in Arizona and dealing with the constant stream of illegals, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to present ID upon request by a uniformed federal or state officer. How else do you propose they determine legal presence?” If you can’t tell legal status from any behavior what difference does it make if someone is illegal? There are plenty of places where an ID check is appropriate…like applying for a driver’s license or welfare benefits but having the Government stopping and checking your papers with no probable cause while you travel in the interior of the US is simply creepy.
ID check to vote – Not allowed
ID check for the hell of it – Allowed
I live in San Antonio, lived in Tucson. Dealt with border stops in AZ and had no problem with it. But if you are NOT with the Border Patrol you have no business stopping anyone to ask the status of their citizenship. Period.
Ok, because these guys are “border guards” 40 miles from the border you can tell them to pound sand? So what’s the difference between these guys stopping you and cops? You try pulling this when a cop stops you and you’re in real trouble.
A cop has never asked me, in 40+ years on earth, to prove that I am an American citizen. Perhaps you are too dense to understand the difference. They can ask me to prove that I am a licensed driver if they pull me over because I am speeding, ran a red light, etc. Two completely different things.
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