There is no particular legal authority for cops or Border Patrol agents to randomly stop a bus, enter it and search. Whether they bring police dogs on board to sniff or merely demand identification from people who are of a particular hue, it can’t be done without acquiescence. The union president for Greyhound bus drivers, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1700, calls on the company to tell the government that they will no longer do so.

Local 1700 represents 3,500 Greyhound drivers, mechanics, and terminal workers. My job, as the president, is to advocate on behalf of our members for fair pay, safety, and wellbeing. But today, I’m advocating for our customers. by urging Greyhound management to stand up for our passengers and tell the U.S. Border Patrol that it cannot board our buses without probable cause or a warrant.

Karen Miller is generally* right, that there is no lawful authority to compel Greyhound to allow agents on board their buses. This is a product of consent, drivers and company permitting it to happen because the government wants to do it. 

With greater frequency over the past two years, Border Patrol agents across the country have been boarding our buses and asking our passengers, especially customers of color, to show their papers. Passengers who are unable to provide documentation showing that they are authorized to be in the United States are then taken off the bus and processed for possible deportation.

On top of a bus passenger’s right to be left alone is the consequence of not having the “documentation” demanded by Border Patrol. Of course, freedom to travel within the United States is a fundamental right, and there is no duty, none, on the part of any American to possess documentation that he is an American. This doesn’t mean that a person can’t be seized until their identity is established, provided there is authority to seize in the first place, but there is no authority to seize the person here, other than the claim they’re not a citizen because they don’t have documentation to prove they are. And to complete the circle, citizens aren’t required to possess documentation.

By not requiring the Border Patrol to have constitutionally adequate suspicion before boarding, Greyhound is allowing the federal government to violate our passengers’ constitutional rights. Racial profiling, harassment, and discriminatory searches and seizures are prohibited by the Constitution, as the Supreme Court has made clear when interpreting the exact law that Border Patrol operates under. Our passengers are people who have paid money to ride our buses safely and with dignity. It is incumbent on us not to allow Border Patrol agents to board the buses and interrogate them without adequate suspicion.

While the use of border searches as pretext for harassment or criminal searches is unconstitutional, they’re still permissible as border searches. But again, Miller makes a very important point in noting that Greyhound is acquiescing to the government’s scheme at the expense of its customer, the nice folks who buy tickets so that they can put gas in the buses. The company is selling out the people who pay it to appease the whims of the government. Why would a company do such a thing, sacrifice the people upon whom it relies to exist for the sake of appeasing the government?

Greyhound management has claimed that upholding the Constitution would endanger our drivers, but that’s not true. This is not about challenging or criticizing law enforcement. We respect and depend on officers who act to protect public safety based on legally sufficient reasons.

Here’s where things get sticky. Miller says “that’s not true,” but saying so isn’t good enough. She proposes Greyhound send a letter to the Department of Homeland Security informing it that their drivers will no longer permit Border Patrol agents on buses absent probable cause or a warrant. Sounds totally reasonable, unless the government decides it’s not thrilled by the ultimatum.

If you’re a bus driver and an armed Border Patrol agent, maybe with a cute pooch at the end of his leash, tells you to stop the bus as he’s coming on, are you going to tell him no? Even if you do, and the agent replies that he’s going to do so anyway, are you going to physically block him? No matter how much you love and respect your passengers, or hate the Border Patrol agents, are you prepared to go down, or worse?

Even if the letter served its purpose and a memo issued from DHS to leave Greyhound buses alone, what would happen when a driver needed the assistance of the police or the Border Patrol? Would they be there, with smiling faces, to serve and protect? Would drivers feel confident that they can assert their right to be left alone when there was no probable cause, and yet depend on law enforcement to protect them when needed?

If management writes a letter to the Department of Homeland Security formally objecting to Border Patrol’s practice, it would become a legal matter, not something for individual drivers to implement. Unfortunately, Greyhound, perhaps fearful of a government backlash, has been unwilling to take a stance. Management should join us in understanding that this is about passengers and their constitutional rights, not politics.

Whether a letter would make it a “legal matter” isn’t at all clear. Things don’t become “legal matters” just because you say so, but because someone sues or something and makes the active decision to fight against the disruption and intrusion, the harassment of paying customers because they’re fish in a barrel to the Border Patrol.

But it should be a legal matter, as the solution shouldn’t be a letter from Greyhound management telling the government to respect the constitutional rights of its passengers or suffer the retaliation of the Border Patrol. That’s why we have federal judges, to hold that such random probable causeless “border-ish” searches are unconstitutional and that nobody on a bus in the United States of America has to show documentation on demand ever again.

*The “border” for purposes of random border searches, requiring cause, is 100 miles inland from any actual border. This makes much of the United States a border, which means many buses are within the zone of random border searches.