TUPPER LAKE — A Customs and Border Protection checkpoint on state Route 30 between Tupper Lake and Long Lake on Thursday led to the arrest of a 31-year-old Guatemalan man described as an “illegal alien” who is currently in the custody of ICE and awaiting deportation proceedings, according to CBP.

Some people who were stopped at the checkpoint expressed concern, citing numerous recent cases of U.S. citizens, legal permanent residents or people with work visas or other documentation being detained, interrogated or assaulted by immigration agents. They feel the nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration also threatens legal immigrants and temporary legal residents who are being denied due process.

Two sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act — 235 and 287 — authorize CBP agents to board and search vehicles within 100 miles of the border. Agents have higher interrogation and arrest powers at these checkpoints than in other enforcement layers such as roving patrols. Agents have authority to question suspects, board vehicles and take evidence.

“Border Patrol carefully selects checkpoint locations along routes of egress from the immediate border area to maximize border enforcement, while minimizing effects on the traveling public,” a CBP spokesperson said in an email to the Enterprise. “Immigration authorities have the authority without a warrant, within a reasonable distance from any external boundary of the United States to board and search for aliens in any vehicle. … In 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed U.S. Border Patrol’s authority to lawfully stop vehicles, without suspicion, at checkpoints away from the border to determine the citizenship of its occupants, finding that such checkpoints are consistent with the Fourth Amendment.”

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Concerns

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Saranac Laker Tracey Schrader was traveling to work in her hometown of Long Lake on Thursday morning when she came on the checkpoint near the trailhead to Goodman Mountain.

Growing up in the area, she said she’s seen this checkpoint set up many times before. But this one was much bigger. Usually there are two to four agents. She saw around a dozen. Schrader also said their uniforms looked “thrown-together” and that the men did not present as agents.

“The vibe was different than the other checkpoints I’ve been through in the past,” Schrader said.

At the checkpoint, an agent looked Schrader’s car over and asked where she was going, if she had anyone in the car with her and if she is a legal citizen. After she left, she pulled off on the side of the road and put a notice about the checkpoint out on Facebook.

She said even when people have legitimate papers, they still get detained sometimes. She feels due process is being ignored, even though it is a constitutional right guaranteed to anyone on U.S. soil, regardless of their immigration status.

Schrader has employed people on work visas in the past and said she’d be worried about them if they were here now.

There are numerous instances of U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents being detained by immigration agencies, and numerous lawsuits about their rights being violated — Job Garcia, a U.S. citizen who was tackled, arrested and detained for filming an ICE raid; George Retes, an army veteran who was tear gassed, burned and detained for three days following an ICE raid at the farm he worked at; Elzon Lemus, a U.S. citizen and New Yorker who was detained during a traffic stop because agents said he resembled a man they were looking for; Miguel Silvestre, a U.S.-born citizen, who has been illegally deported several times because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security incorrectly lists his birthplace as Mexico; Leonardo Garcia Venegas, a U.S.-born citizen who was wrestled to the ground and arrested for filming an ICE raid; Wilmer Chavarria, a Vermont school superintendent and naturalized U.S. citizen who was detained and interrogated at an airport for hours for unknown reasons after seeing family in Nicaragua.

This is a consistent problem for organizations like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which arrested 674, detained 121 and removed 70 potential U.S. citizens between 2015 and 2020, according to a report form the U.S. Government Accountability Office. This office’s recommendations were implemented, but the problem persists.

It is illegal for CBP to arrest and detain U.S. citizens without probable cause that they violated an immigration law.

The Donald Trump administration is attempting to de-document hundreds of thousands of people from Venezuela and Haiti by rolling back their Temporary Protected Status.

It also plans to deny asylum claims for hundreds of thousands of people who entered the U.S. illegally, fleeing violence or persecution in their home country, before requesting asylum. This would put them on track for deportation.

The “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed earlier this month massively increases the costs to legally immigrate. The 700 immigration judges working in 71 immigration courts nationwide have a 3.5 million-case backlog, seven times larger than in 2017, with the number rising consistently every year.

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Know your rights

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These traffic stops have been challenged under the Fourth Amendment which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government — but the Supreme Court has upheld the CBP’s authority to hold them.

“In United States v. Martinez Fuertes (1976) the U.S. Supreme Court balanced the governmental interest in stopping illegal immigration against the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure, finding that only minimal intrusion existed to motorists at reasonably located check points, even in the absence of reasonable or individualized suspicion,” according to CBP.

The American Civil Liberties Union has a “know your rights” page on these sorts of traffic stops at tinyurl.com/25789vr8.

“Agents do not need any suspicion to stop you and ask you questions at a lawful checkpoint, but their questions should be brief and related to verifying immigration status,” according to the ACLU. “Some motorists will be sent to secondary inspection areas at the checkpoint for further questioning. This should be done only to ask limited and routine questions about immigration status that cannot be asked of every motorist in heavy traffic.”

It says agents must have “reasonable suspicion” for an extended questioning and that a search requires “probable cause.”

“You can ask an agent for their basis for reasonable suspicion, and they should tell you,” according to the ACLU. “Refusing to answer the agent’s question will likely result in being further detained for questioning, being referred to secondary inspection, or both.”

“Motorists may consent to a search but are not required to do so,” according to CBP.