An immigration checkpoint set up on I-95 in Penobscot County Wednesday resulted in the arrest of a man with an outstanding deportation order, 10 drug-related seizures and a formal warning to an immigrant who was not carrying his green card.
It has also raised questions about U.S. Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) practice of making random checks so far inland.
The Bangor Daily News posted a video of two reporters going through the checkpoint Wednesday. In it, an agent tells them that if a driver declines to answer the question of whether they are a U.S. citizen, the car could be pulled over.
Dennis Harmon is a division chief with the CBP's Houlton sector. He says there are various ways an agent can establish whether someone is a citizen.
“It comes to the agent's experience and training when they're at the checkpoint and looking at the person, the person's mannerisms, just the way they're speaking,” Harmon said.
Some critics suggest this practice may violate 4th Amendment constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure and the 5th Amendment protection against self incrimination.
An attorney for the Maine American Civil Liberties Union says the checkpoints in Penobscot County are another example of CBP’s “show-me-your-papers” policies that make us all less free, and that the checkpoints pose the risk of biased and subjective enforcement that the Fourth Amendment is designed to prevent.
