The ACLU of Maine has filed a lawsuit in federal court against U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Homeland Security.
The ACLU claims that the agencies have ignored a Freedom of Information Act request for records into the agencies’ investigations into the citizenship status of bus passengers in Maine. ACLU of Maine staff attorney Emma Bond says the organization filed the FOIA request in January after learning that Customs and Border Protection agents were questioning passengers boarding a Concord Coach Lines bus in Bangor.
“At a minimum we want to know the dates of times of instances where CBP has stopped buses, has engaged in local immigration raids,” she says.
CBP has said it has the right to make such checks anywhere within 100 miles of the border — a standard that encompasses the entire state. Bond says people shouldn’t have to prove citizenship just to ride the bus.
“We don’t want to live in a ‘show me your papers’ society,” she says.