Greyhound, the company of largest bus in the United Statesannounced Friday that it will stop allowing agents from the Border Patrol Get on your buses for routine immigration checks.
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The company made the announcement a week after The Associated Press report on a filtered memo Border Patrol confirming that agents cannot board private buses without the company’s consent. Greyhound had already insisted that, although he did not like immigration inspections, I had no choice but to allow them due to federal law.
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In a statement sent by email, the company said it would notify the Department of Homeland Security that does not consent to unjustified records on its buses or in terminal areas that are not open to the general public. He added that he would provide his trainers and bus station employees with updated trainings on the new policy and that it would put gummed in all its buses that indicated that it did not consent the searches.
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Greyhound has been pressured by the American Civil Liberties Union, migrant rights defenders and Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson to stop allowing revisions on their buses in a 160-kilometer (100-mile) strip from the international border or from the coast.
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They claim that the practice is intimidating and discriminatory, and that it has become more common under the presidency of Donald Trump. Arrests made by agents of the Border Patrol videotaped by other passengers have generated criticism, and Greyhound faces a lawsuit in California that alleges that it allegedly violated consumer protection laws by facilitating raids.
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Other bus companies, including Jefferson Lines, which operates in 14 states, and MTRWestern, and which operates on the northwest coast, They have made it clear that they do not consent to the agents boarding the buses.
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The document obtained by the AP is dated January 28 and is addressed to all supervisors and signed by the then head of the Border Patrol, Carla Provost, shortly before retiring. It confirms the legal stance that Greyhound’s critics have taken: the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits agents from boarding buses and interrogating passengers without an arrest warrant or without the company’s consent.
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