Bus, train passengers: Border Patrol racial profiling at times

By Marlene Naanes, amNewYork Staff Writer
More stories | MNaanes@am-ny.com

July 9, 2008

At the Saint Francis of Assisi Church Immigration Center, Father Brian Jordan hugs a man facing deportation. The native Mexican man living in Prospect Park, Brooklyn was apprehended in Delaware by the border police. He was removed from an Amtrak train while heading back and currently faces deportation back to Mexico.
(Photo by Tiffany L. Clark / July 8, 2008)

Border patrol agents upstate are increasingly arresting New York City undocumented immigrants aboard Amtrak trains and Greyhound buses, raising questions that the government sometimes resorts to racial profiling, immigration advocates and attorneys said.

The arrests have been an authorized practice for decades but seem to have hit a fevered pitch recently, according to advocates.

The patrols have sparked protests in the city as well as upstate, most recently last weekend in Syracuse, where a group said that agents have even targeted U.S. citizens who look "foreign". Immigration attorneys say witnesses have said that agents sometimes question only people of color.

"We are a nation of law, but is their enforcement money better spent going after criminals and youth gangs?" asked the Rev. Brian Jordan, of the Franciscan Immigration Center in Manhattan, who has counseled one Irish and 12 Mexican and Central American undocumented immigrants who were taken off Greyhound buses and Amtrak trains in the past year.

Word of the patrols has broken out in some immigrant communities, and people who have overstayed visas or who never had one are staying off trains.

"Certainly it sent shockwaves through the Irish community," said a Manhattan Irish pub owner, whose bartender was recently deported after Border Patrol agents found him on a bus without identification. "You're not safe anywhere."

The Border Patrol has beefed up its efforts, which include train and bus checks, through a post- 9/11 infusion of antiterrorism funding. Agency officials said they do not know how many immigrants it has detained through the patrols, but considers the policy a vital enforcement tool.

The Border Patrol also denied accounts of profiling. An official said the agency is following a federal law that allows agents to make warrantless stops within a reasonable distance from the country's borders, about 100 miles. The practice helps to catch criminals, contraband and people crossing the Canadian border illegally. It also allows agents to arrest undocumented immigrants traveling from state to state, authorities said.

"A bus pulls in, you talk to everyone," said Border Patrol Operations Officer Mark Henry, whose sector covers five upstate counties.

The patrols have captured the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is counseling immigrant groups on their rights and is monitoring the patrols for instances of profiling.

"In terms of the legality, it may be legal for border patrol to go onto a train," said Judy Rabinovitz from the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project.

"What's not legal is just to stop and question people just because they look foreign."

Some observers, however, do not think enforcement efforts have gone far enough.

Michael Cutler, a fellow with the Center for Immigration Studies, said allowing undocumented immigrants to stay in the country opens them up to exploitation. He added that finding undocumented immigrants is a national-security imperative, since such nets could enmesh potential terrorists.

"How can we be safe when we have millions of people in our country and we don't know their identification or anything about them?" Cutler said.

A city immigration group, Families for Freedom, plans to ramp up a campaign against the searches and has already targeted Amtrak and Greyhound, saying the companies should warn customers about potential immigration checks.

Amtrak said the company has put signs advising of the checks in upstate stations and makes announcements about the policy inside Penn Station. The company is also continuing a post-Sept. 11 policy that asks passengers to carry proper identification.

A Greyhound spokesman said the company is not obligated to tell customers of the inspections and that it cooperates with law enforcement.

One Prospect Heights resident may soon get on a plane to Mexico, wondering if he'll ever see his wife of 22 years again. The man, 39, was expected this week to agree to voluntary deportation, a fate sealed when he was caught on an Amtrak train in Delaware two years ago without proper identification. The undocumented immigrant, who crossed the Mexican border 13 years ago with his wife and has worked in the bar and restaurant industry since, said agents were only asking Hispanics for identification.

"I'm not committing any crimes and I'm paying my taxes," said the man who asked not to be identified. "I dreamed of one day getting my papers."

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