We may expect a bit of delay or inconvenience when driving in from Mexico or Canada, taking a foreign cruise, or returning on an international flight, as we go through customs or cross the border. We should never be delayed by Customs and Border Protection agents while traveling interstate and having never left the country. I found this story today and haven’t noticed it blogged on the Kos. I’ve highlighted a few sections.
When Kelley Amadei disembarked from Delta Flight 1583 with her wife and son at Kennedy Airport Wednesday, she didn't expected to be greeted by two Customs and Border Protection agents standing at the jet bridge entrance. Amadei says that as the flight from San Francisco was taxiing to the gate, a flight attendant told passengers to have their travel documents ready for inspection before leaving the plane. Once she and her family exited, the agent studied their identification cards, glancing between her and the ID before, focusing his gaze on her 7-year-old son. She says she's never experienced anything like it before.
"It didn't feel normal. I've been on a million domestic flights, I didn't ever have that experience," she said. "He studied my ID, for sure. I was checking because I was thinking maybe they were looking for someone in particular, but they didn't have a manifest in their hands that I could see so they were just checking IDs," she said. Passengers on the flight called the experience unnerving amid heightened tensions in recent times. They're demanding answers about CBP officers blocking the exit and checking IDs.
Amadei was so concerned about her experience, she doubled back to the gate to speak to the officers.
"He said, 'It's not for you to to worry about, we do it from time to time,'" she recounted. "I said, 'I've been on a thousand flights, I used to travel three weeks out of the month. I never had it happen on a domestic flight and I've never had it happen on an international flight.' He just looked at me and said ‘leave it alone.'"
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman said Thursday afternoon they were looking for a specific person. "This individual was ordered removed by an immigration judge," he said in a statement to NBC 4 New York. "To assist our law enforcement partners, two CBP officers requested identification from those on the flight in order to help identify the individual. The individual was determined not to be on the flight." The spokesman added that the CBP does this regularly, and that the process started after 9/11. He said this case was a little different because they didn't have a picture of who they were looking for, just a name.
A spokesperson for Delta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
From NBC 4 News, New York 2/23/2017
There is so much wrong with this, I guess I’ll start at the beginning. I was taught we are not required by law to carry identification, just identify ourselves if asked by LEO’s. So what was this crap, “have their travel documents ready for inspection? We don’t need no stinkin’ papers to prove who we are. We already passed the identity check to pass through security and get on the aircraft. Since when did CBP officers blocking the exit and checking IDs on a domestic flight become an acceptable activity?
Being told by a federal law enforcement agent interfering with interstate commerce and transportation, “not for you to to worry about, we do it from time to time, leave it alone”, is not an acceptable answer. When any agent of government infringes on the rights of the citizens, there is a problem. Failure to plan in that they didn't have a picture of who they were looking for, just a name, and an order by an immigration judge, doesn’t mean our individual right to free interstate travel gets thrown under the bus of enforcing the laws, To assist our law enforcement partners.
Our right to free and unhindered Freedom of Movement is a protected and inviolate right.
In Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999). In that case, Justice John Paul Stevens, writing for the majority, held that the United States Constitution protected three separate aspects of the right to travel among the states: the right to enter one state and leave another, the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than a hostile stranger (protected by the "privileges and immunities" clause in Article IV, § 2), and further down,Current US Code addresses air travel specifically. In 49 U.S.C. § 40103, "Sovereignty and use of airspace", the Code specifies that "A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace." — Wikipedia
Checking ID as part of the pre-boarding security process is an inconvenience I wish we could do without. Being screened, delayed , required to identify oneself at the end of a domestic flight is direct interference in our Freedom of Movement. “U.S. citizens have the right to travel or move within and between the 50 states without the requirement of submitting to a search of one's person or property prior to travel” (Freedom of Movement) and certainly no restrictions for completing such travel should be interfered with by the government.
By law you do not have to show ID in every state (some you do), certainly not to federal officers as you are leaving an aircraft. IMO, the passengers should have said, “excuse me, I don’t need to show ID to identify myself just provide my name. Am I being detained, if so on what grounds?” Also, why were they checking the identities of all ages and sexes? They had a name and should have had a description as well; if not it was again their failure to plan. This is another case of government overreach that infringes on individual rights.
Our GOP brethren should be just as exercised about this abuse since they seem to be the ones calling for less guvment and fewer restrictions. The person in the story was within their rights to ask (actually demand) information. The names and badge numbers of the CBP officers should have been noted and complaints filed. If we surrender our rights a bit at a time, how long before they are all gone. Under this current regime, we must insist on protecting our rights, we must resist any infringement or erosion of our rights, and we must persist in being vocal to the point of making the other side to pay attention. If we sit down and shut up, we will never have our Constitutional rights back and will lose additional freedoms. We are already witnessing the attempts to wear down women’s, LGBT, religious, and ethnic rights and destroy the protections fought for in the last 50 plus years.