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Jade Hopkins and Robert Kipp live in Presque Isle.
Riding a bus shouldn’t mean that you have to sacrifice your constitutional rights.
But that’s what happened to us last fall during a rest stop in Houlton while riding the Cyr Bus Line. Armed Customs and Border Patrol agents boarded the bus and began to interrogate passengers about their citizenship status.
It wasn’t the first time. We had been questioned before by CBP agents, and we didn’t understand why the bus passengers were being targeted. The bus route doesn’t cross the U.S. border and there’s no citizenship requirement to ride a bus.
We did our research and found out that most people aren’t required to answer CBP’s questions, despite what we were told by agents. Only certain types of visa-holders have to respond.
It’s not as if Customs and Border Patrol had a warrant or appeared to be following a “lead.” They were questioning everyone who happened to be on the bus, as if merely being on public transit near the border is worthy of suspicion. That day, we were just trying to take the Cyr Bus to Bangor.
We believe that we — everyone — should be allowed to move about freely in this country without being subject to random interrogation by armed agents.
We made a decision: The next time we were on a bus and CBP agents tried to interrogate us, we would exercise our constitutional rights by declining to answer their unnecessary questions.
On Nov. 25, 2022, we were returning to Presque Isle after visiting family in New Hampshire for Thanksgiving.
Customs and Border Patrol agents boarded the bus in Houlton. When we refused to answer their questions, they continued to pressure us.
One agent was firm in repeating that we had to tell them whether we were U.S. citizens, no matter how many times we repeated that we were not required to do so. He told us he could remove us from the bus if we refused.
We — knowing our rights — asked him what “reasonable suspicion” allowed them to detain us, since merely being near the border and refusing to answer their question does not qualify as reasonable suspicion. But, in violation of our Fourth Amendment rights, he removed us from the bus, all while our fellow passengers and the Cyr Bus driver looked on.
When we asked another CBP agent to explain how they could detain us without cause, we recall him saying he was “not playing that game” — the “game” in this case apparently being the Fourth Amendment.
The CBP agents pulled our luggage off the bus and threatened that if we didn’t respond, they would detain us so we would miss our bus. This would have left us stranded in Houlton with no way to get home.
It’s traumatic to be handcuffed and interrogated, even when you know you’ve done nothing wrong. It’s terrifying that armed government agents can deny your rights when they personally choose, and we saw first-hand how those entrusted to enforce the law could slip into abuse.
We relented. We told them that we are U.S. citizens. But at that point, it wasn’t enough. They demanded to see identification. We showed them our driver’s licenses. They accepted them with barely a glance and let us go.
This is not a “show-me-your papers” country.
Working with the ACLU of Maine, we are calling upon the Cyr Bus Line to do what Concord Coach and Greyhound Lines have both done: Deny Customs and Border Patrol access to their buses unless they have a warrant. No one should be subjected to suspicion, intimidation, coercion and detainment merely because they chose to ride the bus.
