Can you refuse to show ID and give information to Border Patrol agents when not at a international border? There are hundreds of videos on YouTube filmed by drivers who refuse to show ID or give information to Border Control agents at interior (non-international border) checkpoints (permanent or arbitrarily) set up along roads, i.e. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLIJF0BnwBU According to United States Border Patrol interior checkpoints - Wikipedia, No documentation is required at a Border Patrol checkpoint for US citizens... Some of these check stations in YouTube videos are within 100 miles of a border; some are not. The Border Patrol can be very adamant at demanding ID and information. Do these drivers have a solid legal basis - stating that they have been illegally stopped for no reason, that there can be no probable cause solely by driving near a border, that the constitution forbids these kinds of stops - for refusing to show ID? Can they legally refuse to show documents and refuse to answer questions as to where they may be traveling to and from? They don't appear to be getting arrested. Can only US citizens refuse? What about Green card holders? How does the Border Patrol know determine they may or may not be citizens if the individuals are successful at refusing to show ID?
tl;dr According to the ACLU, who are experts on this… yes, it is perfectly legal for you to refuse to provide documentation or ID to border patrol, and your refusal cannot be used as a basis for reasonable suspicion of an immigration violation. The ACLU has a very helpful guide to your rights when questioned at Border Patrol checkpoints, whether fixed or random. Emphasis in these excerpts is mine: Refusing to answer CBP’s questions may result in the agent persisting with questioning. If this occurs, you should ask if you are being detained. Another way to ask this is to say, “am I free to leave?” If the agent wishes to actually detain you — in other words, you are not free to leave — the agent needs at least reasonable suspicion that you committed an immigration violation to do so. As I understand it from other legal sources, this means that the agent must have a reasonable suspicion that you are: not a US citizen and that you have violated immigration law And furthermore: You do not have to answer questions about your immigration status. You may simply say that you do not wish to answer those questions. If you choose to remain silent, the agent will likely ask you questions for longer, but your silence alone is not enough to support probable cause or reasonable suspicion to arrest, detain, or search you or your belongings. … As before, when you are at a checkpoint, you can remain silent, inform the agent that you decline to answer their questions or tell the agent you will only answer questions in the presence of an attorney. In the YouTube videos of checkpoint refusals, you'll see lots of folks declining to answer questions or stating that they will only answer questions from law enforcement in the presence of an attorney. If you are held at the checkpoint for more than brief questioning, you can ask the agent if you are free to leave. If they say no, they need reasonable suspicion to continue holding you. Lots of this in the checkpoint refusals too. The drivers ask if they're being detained and/or if they're free to leave. If you watch closely you'll probably see that many of the Border Patrol agents avoid answering these questions — because they know that they don't have sufficient suspicion to detain the drivers. You can ask the agent to tell you their basis for probable cause, and they should be able to articulate their suspicion. This is also seen in some of the videos. There's a very important caveat about when you are required to provide documentation (other than at the border): A limited exception does exist: for people who do have permission to be in the U.S. for a specific reason and for, usually, a limited amount of time (a “nonimmigrant” on a visa, for example), the law does require you to provide information about your immigration status if asked. While you can still choose to remain silent or decline a request to produce your documents, people in this category should be aware that they could face arrest consequences. If you want to know whether you fall into this category, you should consult an attorney. … If an agent asks you for documents, what you need to provide differs depending on your immigration status. U.S. citizens do not have to carry proof of citizenship on their person if they are in the United States. If you have valid immigration documents and are over the age of 18, the law does require you to carry those documents on you. If you are asked by an immigration agent to produce them, it is advisable to show the documents to the agent or you risk being arrested. If you are an immigrant without documents, you can decline the officer’s request. An agent may likely ask you more questions if you decline a request. No matter what category you fall into, never provide false documents to immigration officials. If you are a citizen you have no obligation to provide documents to establish this; it is not illegal for you to refuse. If you are undocumented, you do not have any obligation to provide documents; it is not illegal for you to refuse. If you are a non-citizen and do have valid documents, you are required to provide them — apparently, it is illegal for you not to do so. So if you're a non-citizen who's legally present in the USA for a temporary term (e.g. tourist, student, business trip, etc.) then you are required to show documents proving this. But if you're undocumented you can — and should!! — do what you see in the videos, and refuse to provide documentation. The Arizona ACLU has a helpful printable sheet with additional pithy points: You may be asked where you were born, how you entered the U.S. or how long you’ve been here. You don’t ever have to answer those questions. Your responses may be used to detain and deport you. … NEVER FLEE A CHECKPOINT!
My own answer to the question is yes, but not directly. As with many other laws it would take a court ruling to definitively spell out how international agreements are applicable to a given situation. Unfortunately it doesn't seem that such a court ruling was ever produced so far: Google Scholar fails to list any US court cases relevant to the Convention on Road Traffic. The only somewhat relevant case is Busby v. State in which the court rules that one cannot drive in Alaska with an IDP after having been previously restricted from driving in Alaska. The court does stress out that: The Convention does forbid a signatory country (or subsidiary state) from imposing or enforcing license revocations in a manner that discriminates against residents of other signatory countries. But Busby does not claim that he was the victim of such discrimination. Busby's license was revoked for conduct that would have led to license revocation if committed by an Alaska resident. (Indeed, Busby's license was revoked while he was an Alaska resident.) And Busby does not claim that he was singled out for prosecution because he was a resident of a foreign country—i.e., that the State would not have charged him with the offense of driving with a revoked license if he had still been an Alaska resident. This could possibly mean that the court believes that the Convention only applies to foreign residents, but its not spelled out specifically. Searching for Canadian court cases likewise doesn't turn up anything useful. The only relevant case is R. v. Lawend where the person in question was trying to drive in Ontario on a foreign license after previously having had their Ontario license suspended. Here the court rules similar to the decision in Alaska in that having a foreign license does not allow one to circumvent locally imposed license restrictions. Searching for UK case law doesn't turn up any relevant court cases. Australian case law is likewise mute on the subject. There is also a relevant legal opinion by the Department of State quoted in the Digest of United States practice in International Law, 2002: Reading these provisions as a whole, we believe that the State of Georgia, consistent with the CRT, (1) must permit an alien to drive in Georgia using a foreign driver’s license issued by a country party to the CRT only if the alien has been lawfully admitted to the United States; (2) must permit a lawfully admitted alien to drive in Georgia using a foreign driver’s license of a CRT party only during the first year after the alien’s admission; and (3) may, in accordance with Georgia’s residency laws, require an alien resident in Georgia to obtain a Georgia driver’s license as a condition for continued authorization to drive. By the same token, nothing in the CRT would prevent the State of Georgia from applying more liberal rules with respect to the driving privileges of aliens. In Automated Vehicles Are Probably Legal in the United States, 2014 the author further analyses how the 1949 Geneva Convention is applicable within the United States. First, to settle the definition of "international traffic": Nonetheless, the United States ultimately accepted that “the purpose of chapter II was to establish, in effect, an international code of minimum safety requirements. By indirection, the rules of the road set forth in the convention would apply to the pattern of domestic as well as to international traffic. The author the meaning behind Article I of the Convention: Article 1 states in part that no party “shall be required to extend the benefit of the provisions of this Convention to any motor vehicle or trailer, or to any driver having remained within its territory for a continuous period exceeding one year.” This provision, on its face, indicates that the parties recognized that the treaty would benefit individuals. In no way does this recognition compel a conclusion that the Convention is self-executing, but it does suggest that the treaty is of a type that the Senate might have understood to be directly enforceable. And finally on the issue of whether or not the treaty is "self-executing": For these reasons, it is likely that courts will continue to treat the Geneva Convention as self-executing. Nonetheless, a court might conclude that, with respect to section II’s rules of the road, the governmental obligation is merely to “take appropriate measures” and that such an obligation is too vague to be enforced judicially. So it seems absolutely clear that the Convention intended for participating countries to allow foreign drivers to drive abroad for up to one year. However international treaties are not self-executing by default in Canada, unlike the US: Canada is bound by the terms of treaties that it enters into and breach thereof may give rise to international claims. However, in Canada treaties are not self-executing; they do not constitute part of the law of the land merely by virtue of their conclusion. So even though British Columbia is violating the 1949 Geneva Convention one cannot directly rely on said international agreement to enforce their rights. But another state party could theorethically sue Canada on behalf of its citizen to request that Canada rectifies its laws with accordance to the agreement.
If a police officer reviewed the footage and then went out and issued a citation in person to the offender, this could probably be used. Many states limit tickets issued by mail based upon camera evidence alone. But, while some state laws have specific requirements, but in general, authenticated video recordings are admissible evidence in court proceedings, and a citizen complaint can be a basis for initiating a traffic offense prosecution. To prove some offenses, like speeding, dashcam evidence of a third-party may not be very good evidence, but for running a red light or a stop sign, it could be powerful evidence.
From the German lawyer association (&quot;Deutscher Anwaltverein&quot;) one can find the following (Google-translation): In the case of a purely preventive identity check, the officers are initially only allowed to determine the identity of the respondent. This means that you can ask for your name, date and place of birth, home address and nationality and have your ID shown - by the way, as a German citizen you don't have to always have your ID with you. &quot;You don't have to answer any questions beyond that,&quot; says lawyer Robert Hotstegs from the German Lawyers' Association (DAV). Of course, police officers often try to gather more information with emphatically casual questions. &quot;Well, where do we come from&quot; or: &quot;And where are we going now?&quot; Are typical examples. The police are not allowed to insist on an answer. Anyone who, as a respondent, is voluntarily too willing to provide information can harm themselves and possibly even give rise to concrete suspicions. So they are allowed to ask such things, but you don't need to answer everything. How to handle such situations, again according to the link above: “I recommend answering the survey as briefly and politely as possible. This has a de-escalating effect and helps to end the unpleasant situation as quickly as possible, ”says Attorney Hotstegs. However, you should always answer the questions about yourself. Because if the police cannot determine the identity of a person or only with great effort, they may take further measures to determine the identity. This includes taking it to the police station and, under certain circumstances, a search. Otherwise, these measures are not permitted without a specific reason.
In general in the US, anyone may photograph anyone else if they are all in a public place, although in some states such a photo may not be used commercially without permission, which must often be paid for and may be refused. It is unusual for police to photograph people on the street, but they might want to document who was present at a particular place and time. They can do so, but I am not at all sure that they can prevent a person from covering his or her face, or turning his or her back, or charge a person who does so with obstruction. I don't think so. Under some circumstances in the US police may ask a person for identification, and may charge a person who refuses to provide it. This varied from one state to another, and usually depends on the specific circumstances. (If a person is driving an automobile, police may demand to see a driver's license, for example.) Unless a police officer puts a person under arrest, the officer has no general right to control that person's actions, beyond instructing the person not to interfere with ongoing police work. I do not think an obstruction charge would hold up for covering one's face or turning away in the absence of an arrest.
If the passport that was stolen is a U.S. one, you should report it by any of the channels outlined on the State Department's page Lost or Stolen Passports. The paper-reporting option is via form DS-64, which asks, among other things, whether you filed a police report; so it might be good to do that first. Form N-565 is a similar form for requesting the reissue of a naturalization certificate, and it, likewise, asks about any police report. Withholding someone's ID documents, knowing that they are necessary for travel, would be "false imprisonment" under both state and federal statutes. Also, 18 USC §§1426 and 1427 cover the crimes of "Reproduction of naturalization or citizenship papers" and "Sale of naturalization or citizenship papers"; a 10-year felony for a first offence. "Whosoever unlawfully ... disposes of a ... certificate of naturalization, ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ... 10 years (in the case of the first or second such offense, if the offense was not committed to facilitate such an act of international terrorism or a drug trafficking crime)," If the police take your report but don't scare the possessor of your documentation into immediately returning it, you could sue him or her for the actual expenses of obtaining replacements in Small Claims court. If the mispossessed passport causes big enough damages, I guess you could sue in any court that has jurisdiction.
If there is no reasonable suspicion of a crime having been committed or about to be committed, then there is no reason to seize you, and the Fourth Amendment "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated". Even if a state has a "stop and identify" statute, reasonable suspicion is a minimum requirement for seizing your person, even temporarily. Texas is not a state with an obligation to identify statute. I would not expect the state to be very helpful, given the facts as you report them. There might be others, such as the ACLU, who may be happy to discuss the particulars of your case. The police need to justify a stop in court, and not to the person being seized. I don't know if there is any case law saying that a false police statement to a detainee ("No, I don't have a reasonable suspicion") precludes claiming in court that there was reasonable suspicion, but it should at least make the claim of reasonable suspicion less credible. They do have to have reasonable suspicion, and they do not have to tell you what that suspicion is. OTOH if they are just harassing bicyclists, that would be illegal.
The US doesn't do exit immigration checks, so if your hypothetical Israeli overstayer can board a flight out of the US, they'll most likely be allowed to go without detention or other punishment. The US sees no value in spending government money to detain someone who is ready to leave of their own accord. I'm not sure why such a person should have &quot;no valid documentation&quot;. Maybe you're confused by the common term &quot;undocumented&quot; for people without legal immigration status, but it usually doesn't literally mean they have no documentation at all. Most such people would still have their passport and other identification from their home country, and the passport is enough to board a flight back home. You say your hypothetical Israeli overstayer had a visa; so they must have had an Israeli passport when they entered the US. Under normal circumstances, they've still got it. If it expired, they could have renewed it at an Israeli consulate within the US; the consulate will issue passports to all Israeli citizens without regard to their immigration status in the US. Even if somehow they lost their Israeli passport and all other identity documents, the consulate would have the ability to verify their identity from Israeli government records (e.g. the photo and biometrics from their previous passport, which would still be in the Israeli government's database), and process their application for a replacement passport.