No More "Papers Please!" on Greyhound Buses

Statists will no longer be able to harras Greyhound bus passengers minding their own business.

Greyhound, the nation’s largest bus company, said Friday it will stop allowing Border Patrol agents without a warrant to board its buses to conduct routine immigration checks, reports The Associated Press.

The company’s announcement came one week after AP reported on a leaked Border Patrol memo confirming that agents can’t board private buses without the consent of the bus company.

Greyhound had previously insisted that even though it didn’t like the immigration checks, it had no choice under federal law but to allow them.

The company has changed its view thanks to a hero inside the Border Patrol.

AP reports (my emphasis):

The memo obtained by the AP was dated Jan. 28, addressed to all chief patrol agents and signed by then-Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost just before she retired. It confirms the legal position that Greyhound’s critics have taken: that the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment prevents agents from boarding buses and questioning passengers without a warrant or the consent of the company.

“When transportation checks occur on a bus at non-checkpoint locations, the agent must demonstrate that he or she gained access to the bus with the consent of the company’s owner or one of the company’s employees,” the memo states. An agent’s actions while on the bus “would not cause a reasonable person to believe that he or she is unable to terminate the encounter with the agent.”

Greyhound previously argued that case law, including a 1973 Supreme Court ruling, did not extend the Fourth Amendment’s protections to commercial carriers.

In an emailed statement to AP, the company said it would notify the Department of Homeland Security that it does not consent to unwarranted searches on its buses or in areas of terminals that are not open to the public — such as company offices or any areas a person needs a ticket to access.

Greyhound said it would provide its drivers and bus station employees updated training regarding the new policy, and that it would place stickers on all its buses clearly stating that it does not consent to the searches.

Some other bus companies, including Jefferson Lines, which operates in 14 states, and MTRWestern, which operates in the Pacific Northwest, have already taken similar steps to those announced by Greyhound.

Former United States Chief of the Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost deserves a statute in her name.


RW