Thread: Critics say Amtrack walk-throughs use racial profiling

http://www.helenair.com/articles/2000/0 ... ana/6a.txt
Critics say Amtrack walk-throughs use racial profiling

By KAREN IVANOVA, Great Falls Tribune
HAVRE (AP) — Chan Sung Zhen jumped ship in Seattle last October and made a beeline for the Amtrak station.

Within hours, the illegal alien was on the Empire Builder train, headed to Alabama with a recruiter of Chinese chefs he arranged to meet at the Seattle depot.

But the gig was up when the train rolled into Havre.

Each day, uniformed Border Patrol agents hop on board Empire Builder trains to sniff out undocumented travelers during the train’s half-hour stopover at the Havre depot.

Nationwide, the sweeps have led to the arrest of 1,517 aliens on passenger trains and 11,821 on buses in fiscal year 1999. Started in 1924, they’re done at stations across the northern border, including Grand Forks, Detroit, Buffalo and sporadic inspections in Spokane.

But some civil rights advocates say such police questioning, especially on a train that doesn’t cross international borders, is a violation of passengers’ constitutional right to privacy and due process.

It’s also racial profiling, veteran Seattle immigration attorney Antonio Salazar said.

“They just do it on their appearance, for no other reason,” Salazar said.

Of the 83 Amtrak passengers arrested in Havre between April 1999 and April 2000, only four were from countries with sizable Caucasian populations — one each from France, Israel, Bulgaria and New Zealand.

Forty-five of those caught were from Mexico. The rest hailed from Asia, Africa and South and Central America.

In Zhen’s case, immigration officials in Seattle had posted a lookout for him. But usually the agents aren’t working from tips.

Walking down the aisles, they make casual conversation with passengers: “Hi. How ya doin’? Where are you from?”

Travelers with broken English, a foreign appearance, a nervous reaction or some other red flag may find themselves in a more serious conversation with an agent.

Border Patrol officials are calling the checks, started on the Empire Builder about 18 months ago, a success.

“(The train) gives us an area to focus our limited manpower,” said Robert Finley, chief of the Border Patrol’s Havre Sector, which includes Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Idaho.

Similar checks on Greyhound buses in Billings helped bump alien arrests there by 60 percent in the first quarter of fiscal year 2000. Seventy-one aliens were arrested on the bus from April 1999, about the time they started, to March 2000. Greyhound checks also are done on a limited basis in Glendive.

But the practice is worth a second look, said Judy Rabinovitz, senior staff counsel with the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project in New York.

“It definitely raises questions about racial profiling,” Rabinovitz said. “We are a very diverse country. There are plenty of people who could be considered to look foreign even though they’re American. This treats them as second-class citizens.”

The Border Patrol says such allegations are unfounded.

The ACLU would have a tough time making a racial profiling case in Havre, Finley said. He said his agents never single out train passengers because of their race.

“Just because you may look Hispanic or you may look Nigerian or something like that we do not profile,” Finley said. “We’re very cautious about that.”

For good reason.

Police agencies across the nation, from the Border Patrol to local sheriff’s departments, have come under legal attack for racial profiling in recent years, particularly in traffic stops.

Just last month, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a 7-4 ruling that Border Patrol agents cannot use “Hispanic appearance” as a factor in stopping drivers near the U.S.-Mexico border.

But a foreign appearance in general is still acceptable as a reason for initial questioning, said Nicole Chulick, an INS spokeswoman in Washington D.C.

An agent need only suspect that a passenger is not a U.S. citizen to ask for identification.

So how do agents decide whose papers to check, out of a couple hundred passengers on board the Empire Builder during its half-hour stopover in Havre?

Usually a combination of clues piques an agent’s curiosity, Finley said, such as broken English, or maybe a watch or other personal effect not widely available in this country.

Evasiveness is another red flag.

“When someone who is in this country illegally sees someone in a Border Patrol uniform, they get damn nervous,” Finley said.

But because each case is different, Finley said it’s tough to define what raises an agent’s suspicion.

Agents rely heavily on their experience, he said: “Over the years you develop a certain expertise.”

When the clues add up to “reasonable cause” — suspicion that would hold up under legal scrutiny — the agent will intensify the questioning and, if the passenger can’t produce papers, will likely run a computerized background check through the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Appearance alone never triggers aggressive questioning, said Mark Kemp, assistant chief of the Havre Sector.

“Until you talk to them, see their reaction, give them an opportunity to tell you where they’re from, you can’t tell,” Kemp said.

Agents go out of their way to make such encounters pleasant, he added.

If a noncitizen forgot his or her passport or other documentation, agents can run a computerized background check, much like a highway patrolman on a routine traffic stop. The passenger doesn’t have to leave the train and is usually cleared in a matter of minutes.

“That to me is fairly innocuous,” said Stan Mark, program director with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund in New York. “Not like the extreme stories on the southern borders.”

But the Border Patrol should be using more definable guidelines for deciding when to check a passenger’s ID, Mark said.

“There must be some criteria that can be articulated,” he said. “You just can’t have someone saying, ‘Well, they have 15 years of experience.’ It can’t be just a gut feeling.’ ”

Yet Finley noted that even the Supreme Court has refused to define reasonable cause.

Amtrak customers haven’t complained about the checks, said Kevin Johnson a spokesman in Amtrak’s Chicago office. Amtrak checks are also done on a limited basis in Spokane.

“The thing (agents) have been very good about is we insist that they do not delay the train,” Johnson said. “They’re very efficient in what they do. They know exactly what they’re looking for and how to handle situations so it’s not inconvenient for our passengers, at least those that don’t have something to worry about.”

“There’s a lot of safeguards on (the Border Patrol) now,” said John Vinson with American Immigration Control, a Virginia-based group that advocates less U.S. immigration. “In general it sounds appropriate. Especially if they have reason to believe aliens are coming through on this route.”

But the end results still trouble David Harris, a professor of law and values at the University of Toledo College of Law. Harris is senior justice fellow at the Center for Crime, Communities and Culture and a frequent national commentator on racial profiling.

The Border Patrol does, in fact, enjoy a more relaxed constitutional standard to police for aliens inside border states, Harris said.

Agents can stop drivers miles from the nearest border crossing and even seize their cars if they don’t have papers.

But Harris questions why 95 percent of those arrested in Havre between April 1999 and April 2000 are minorities.

The Border Patrol says it questions people of all races and the arrests are simply a reflection of the aliens who happen to be riding the Empire Builder. Though still a small percentage of arrests, checks on other Amtrak routes uncover more European and other Caucasian aliens, they point out.

Fifty-four percent of the aliens apprehended on Amtrak in the last year were Mexican, mirroring federal estimates that 54 percent of illegal aliens in the United States came from Mexico.

Yet “that’s the same explanation given in all kinds of cases where we end up with a disproportionate impact on certain ethnic groups,” Harris said. “You can’t take that at face value. There’s a relationship between where you look for things and where you find them.”

Race aside, the Border Patrol seems to be looking in the right place.

In November, a few weeks after Zhen was arrested, Havre agents caught a second chef, Guo Qiang Chen, en route to New York. Chen also had jumped ship in Seattle and was traveling with a man who said he was going to employ him at one of four restaurants he owned on Long Island.

A month later, Havre agents caught Darbara Singh on his way to Chicago. Singh told agents he paid $15,555 to be smuggled from India to Sea-Tac Airport. He entered with a valid passport and visa supplied by a smuggler.

Most aliens nabbed on the Empire Builder entered the country legally and overstayed, Kemp said.

Whatever their situation, they enjoy the same constitutional right as U.S. citizens to ignore the agent.

“Nobody’s forced to talk to us,” Kemp said.

If a suspect clams up, the Havre Border Patrol may notify agents at a later stop, perhaps investigating the case in the meantime by checking Amtrak passenger rosters or seeking clues from the INS at the train’s city of origin, Kemp said.

Salazar questions how many foreigners, on a train in the middle of Montana, are comfortable exercising their right to remain silent.

“They don’t,” Salazar said. “Because they’re scared or intimidated.”

Sunday 21 May 2000

"Amtrack uses racial profiling" ....good

Originally Posted by Patrick-Henry

"Amtrack uses racial profiling" ....good

VERY GOOD

Patrick-Henry wrote:
"Amtrack uses racial profiling" ....good



VERY GOOD

OUTSTANDING!!! Looking out for all Americans, what a wonderful company. I'll write and thank them right now!!!

I have made many trips on Amtrak across the northern tier since 1996. Personally, I was thankful for the Border Patrol agents that walked thru at Havre. But then again, I'm legal. On each trip there was at least one person taken off the train.

The ACLU needs to get one.... aclue.

This still kills me......When 95% of the illegal immigrants are latino (or whatever) and my job is to get them.....it makes sense to take my chances and best use my efforts to target that group. I've got a better than 50-50 chance that I'm going to get some.

Plus until they get a real actual count of people......I'm still not sold that it's not me that's now in a minority group. There's a part of me that can't wait till I get to pull the race and discrimination card and I wonder how willing they are going to be to accept the profiling in the name of "fairness" that we all have to tolerate now.

Go Amtrack!!!

But some civil rights advocates say such police questioning, especially on a train that doesn’t cross international borders, is a violation of passengers’ constitutional right to privacy and due process.

It’s also racial profiling, veteran Seattle immigration attorney Antonio Salazar said.

“They just do it on their appearance, for no other reason,” Salazar said.

It's people like this that mess it up for the rest of us.

You go to Amtrak and buy a ticket then go where your heart desires. Because of these baboons, we are going to have to pay more for tickets, pass security checks and show our ID before we can ride the train. They are going to complain us out of our freedoms.

There are people on this earth that just need to be told to SHUT UP!
It’s not illegal to search for illegals.

Dixie

There are people on this earth that just need to be told to SHUT UP!
It’s not illegal to search for illegals.

There she goes again, getting mouthy :P

But, the truth is the truth is the truth.

This country has imposed more BS laws in my lifetime than I can begin to count. And the reason for these stupid laws is because nobody told some people to SHUT UP!

There she goes again, getting mouthy

She IS being mouthy and I like it. Bout time we all start being mouthy!


They are trying to push PC here and our country is in danger because of it. PC be damned. I am truly beginning to believe it is time for a revolution.