PHOENIX, Oct. 9 (UPI) -- The American Civil Liberties Union is charging border patrol agents are carrying out illegal searches in Arizona, sometimes as much as 60 miles from the border.
The ACLU said it has received scores of complaints from residents in Arizona who have charged agents stopped them for no reason and searched them, The Arizona Republic reported Tuesday. Tucson ACLU attorney James Duff Lyall said border patrol agents have a history of making these types of stops and the civil rights group recently settled a similar case after allegations of border patrol stops in Washington state prompted the ACLU to sue.
In that case, the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Patrol, the federal agencies overseeing border patrol agents, agreed to provide training to officers on how to avoid illegal searches under the Fourth Amendment. The agency admitted no wrongdoing under terms of the settlement.
"Meanwhile, we're receiving increasing complaints about the same sorts of unlawful practices here in Arizona," Lyall said.
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The ACLU said it would lodge a format complaint with Homeland Security over the matter.
Border patrol officials see things differently, though -- and argue the training agents receive is all rooted in established case law, said Chris Bauder, executive vice president of the National Border Patrol Council.
"Everything agents do is based on case law," he said. "Agents get training at the academy, again at the duty location, and they get updates whenever the case law changes. It's the same with the standard for reasonable suspicion.
"The hoopla from groups like the ACLU that this is something outside of our authority isn't based on any change in case law; it's due to political pressures or different ideas about how the border ought to be secured."
