The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Notwithstanding that express protection that our ancestors enacted for us in the Bill of Rights, for decades people who own ranches or farms on or near the U.S.-Mexico border have had to suffer the ignominy of Border Patrol agents trespassing onto their property at will without a search warrant.
What’s the justification for this clear violation of the Fourth Amendment? You guessed it — America’s system of immigration controls. U.S. officials have long maintained that it’s necessary to have this dictatorial power in order to prevent people from illegally entering the United States.
Border Patrol Agent Patrols South Texas Border on an All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) taken on September 23, 2013. Photographer: Donna Burton
Question: How has that violation of our rights worked out for you proponents of immigration controls in terms of achieving your decades-long goal of sealing the border? My hunch is not too well, given your ever-growing lament against all those illegal migrants circumventing your controls and your violation of our rights.
This is just one example of how proponents of immigration controls have succeeded in destroying liberty and privacy in America. Other examples, of course, include highway checkpoints that subject people to documents demands and searches of vehicles, a Berlin Wall built with the stealing power of eminent domain, concertina wire designed to cut people up, the criminalization of hiring, transporting, harboring, and caring for illegal immigrants, and forcing Americans to divulge their passwords for searches of cell phones and lap tops.
When I say “near” the border, I actually mean within 100 miles of the border. Yes, you read that right — 100 miles! They can trespass onto any ranch or farm or other real estate that is situated within 100 miles of the border without a search warrant, ostensibly to search for illegal immigrants.
I know this from personal experience. I grew up on a farm on the Rio Grande outside Laredo, Texas. The Border Patrol trespassed onto our farm whenever it wanted, without a search warrant. If we put a lock on our gate and didn’t give them a key, they would shoot the lock off the gate and enter onto our property. They would drive all over our farm at will without a warrant. Interestingly enough, they never entered our house. But I suspect that that was simply because they were being nice.
There are ranches in Texas that consist of tens of thousands of acres. There is an unwritten rule about ranches that most everyone in Texas knows: You leave a gate inside the ranch as you find it. If it’s closed, you leave it closed. If it’s open, you leave it open. That’s because ranchers are managing their livestock by rotating their cattle within various pastures of the ranch. When I was living in Laredo, the Border Patrol would trespass onto big ranches and oftentimes leave closed gates open, thereby creating chaos for the rancher. Those agents simply didn’t care. It’s called the arrogance of omnipotent power. They knew that the rancher had no recourse against them.
This is what proponents of immigration controls have done to our nation’s borderlands. They have turned them into an immigration police state, one that proponents of immigration controls pathetically call a “free society,” as they proudly sing to themselves, “And I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.”