A woman is driving home at 9:30 p.m. with her four-year-old daughter. She pulls into a rest stop. A vehicle appears behind her, with headlights so bright she can’t see. Nervous, she drives away. The other vehicle follows, tailgating her at 60 mph. She switches lanes. The vehicle does too. After several miles, emergency lights come on.

At the roadside, a Border Patrol agent with a hand on his gun approaches. Another agent scans the woman’s car with a flashlight, illuminating her daughter’s face. They’re about 75 miles away from the border in Arizona. “You seem nervous,” one agent says. “Only criminals and people trying to hide things get nervous.” The agent interrogates her, searches personal belongings, and finally releases the car without explanation. Out of fear, the woman resolves to avoid driving at night. Her daughter has recurring nightmares.

Welcome to life in the border region, where Border Patrol’s de factopolicy of “stop and frisk” is familiar to local residents and yet concealed from public view. A new ACLU of Arizona report — based on government records obtained through Freedom of Information Act litigation — sheds light on Border Patrol’s vast “interior enforcement” operations, which take place, without meaningful oversight, far from any border. 

Border Patrol’s own records undermine the agency’s claims that these operations are “safe, efficient, and cost-effective.” Documents contain multiple accounts of Border Patrol agents stopping and searching motorists without justification; threatening residents with assault rifles, Tasers, and knives; destroying and confiscating personal property; interfering with efforts to video-record agents; and using dozens of false alerts by CBP dogs to search and detain innocent people.  

These are not just a few “bad apples.” The records show Border Patrol systematically disregarding the law with impunity. One supervisor instructed agents to “stop any vehicle on the US/Mexico border road” based on the “mere presence of the vehicle.”  The supervisor allegedly “didn’t care if it was the Chief of the Border Patrol and the agent conducted a high risk traffic stop removing the Chief . .  . at gun point.”    

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