The rule is apparently phrased as being within 100 miles of any "external boundary", which doesn't just mean borders with other countries, but also the entire coastline, including the coasts of the Great Lakes. Most Americans live in this area.
Note that the "border" here is not the coastline, but the limits of territorial waters (12 miles). This also means that proximity to, say, the upper Chesapeake Bay or the southern tip of Lake Michigan aren't relevant, as those coastlines are of internal waters and not the larger ocean.
> Note that the "border" here is not the coastline, but the limits of territorial waters (12 miles)
No, the Border Patrol interpretation of the “reasonable distance from the external boundary rule” is that it extends to at least 100 miles from any land border or any part of the US coastline (whether or not it is or is in proximity to an international border.)
That's what the ACLU says the Border Patrol's interpretation is. When I actually read the regulations and the statutes themselves, as far as I could infer, the external boundary was meant to refer to the international water boundary.
I'm afraid I don't recall the exact citation off the top of my head, but I'd like to see more evidence for the ACLU's claims than, well, just the ACLU saying so. Especially when the ACLU itself points out that the law and regulations doesn't actually give the Border Patrol some of the powers it has.
(I should note there's a distinction between the actual legal authority and the actual policies applied in practice--I'm arguing that the legal authority is 100 miles from the international waters boundary; that the Border Patrol is exceeding that is probable, but the ACLU is, IMO, conflating the legal and actual effects to lobby specifically against the law rather than lobbying against the Border Patrol acting illegally).
> I think the rule applies to incoming travellers only, not everyone who happens to be near the border.
No, it applies to where the Border Patrol asserts authority to conduct warrantless stops and searches of any person/vehicle/etc. for potential immigration or violations.
(There's also a similar 25-mile zone where they assert authority to do so on private property other than physically entering houses.)
They also claim similar authority to the 100-mile limit in cities with international airports, if they happen to be outside of the 100 mile zone.
> The Fourteenth Amendment doesn't just lose force for everyone living in one of the coastal cities.
The Fourteenth Amendment limits the power of state governments, it's the Fourth Amendment that is at issue here. But the legal theory is that warrantless searches in these circumstances, are reasonable and thus compliant with the Fourth Amendment.
Searching someone's phone or laptop isn't just done to determine their immigration status. So if a person shows their U.S passport, would BP still be allowed to search their electronics?
That is of course terrible and should never happen, but I think it's also erroneous or illegal, not something the law permits.
I'm not defending BP or ICE practice. I was just wondering if the law actually permits the authorities to search electronic equipment of U.S citizens for no other reason than being within 100 miles of the border. That I would find truly astonishing.
That’s the law as I understand it, yes. CBP set up search checkpoints on highways (even those parallel to the border) to stop and search all vehicle traffic sometimes.
I offered that information about citizen arrests to illustrate that whether or not something is legal or permitted by law does not have much practical effect on the ability to constrain ICE/CBP. They have repeatedly ignored injunctions from federal judges.
> Searching someone's phone or laptop isn't just done to determine their immigration status. So if a person shows their U.S passport, would BP still be allowed to search their electronics?
Sorry, “immigration status” was not quite what I should have said, it's to determine border violations, both immigration and contraband related. As warrantless electronics searches are for “digital cobtraband”, they would seem likely to have the same status in the border zone (to the extent it is valid) as at the border, where manual checks with no specific basis and forensic checks with “reasonable suspicion” have been upheld, IIRC.
