FLORIDA (Conspiracy Talk News) – Joshua Dobarganes, actor born and raised in Miami, experienced first hand Border Patrol harassment Wednesday night in Florida, in the midst of the draconian immigration offensive unleashed by President Donald Trump.
When he was returning home from Jacksonville on a long ride on a Greyhound bus, Dobarganes, 31, was the first passenger to get off the vehicle at the West Palm Beach stop to get some fresh air, and he found several agents of the Border Patrol waiting in the dark, with weapons holstered and accompanied by a dog.
An agent raised his arm in front of Dobarganes, telling him to stop, and asked him where he was coming from, and then: “Are you a US citizen?”
Confused, Dobarganes offered to give him his driver’s license, in the middle of a nervous laugh, and asked if he needed anything else.
“Here I am, at the moment ‘a person of interest,'” Dobarganes told me Thursday. “I have not stopped thinking about that.”
Two dark-skinned Hispanics who did not speak English did not have the luck of Dobarganes, who passed the inspection with his perfect English. The other men, who had boarded the bus in Orlando, were handcuffed and asked repeatedly: “Do you have a knife? Do you have a knife? “
They remained silent, obeying, Dobarganes said, and the Border Patrol agents never tried to translate what they said.
Meanwhile, other Border Patrol agents boarded and searched the bus.
“I was born and raised here. I graduated from FIU [International University of Florida], and I felt weird in that place, with those agents in front of me, checking my bag, “said Dobarganes, whose parents came from Cuba in the late 1960 s when they were teenagers.
“What the hell is this? I felt it was a violation. Everything was dark. I have ridden these buses other times and this has never happened to me. “
The bus driver offered no explanation to the passengers. “We left there as if nothing had happened.”
“This is the third time this has happened on a Greyhound bus in Florida.” he said.
There were two others at the Fort Lauderdale stop.
One of them ended with the arrest of a Jamaican grandmother with an expired tourist visa that her granddaughter had come to visit in Orlando. The other case was of a Guyanese father, a US citizen.
Who knows how many more cases there have been, we do not know.
It is also worth noting that the city of West Palm Beach received a threatening letter from the Department of Justice requesting more cooperation, the same day the Border Patrol was present at its bus station at night.
I asked Greyhound – which serves 18 million passengers a year in the United States – for an explanation of its responsibility to its customers when a government agency clearly targets a company that is used by a large number of people, people of color, particularly Hispanics. But they did not give many explanations.
Spokeswoman Lanesha Gipson repeated the same thing, said earlier in a statement: “We are in contact with the Border Patrol, but by law we have to comply with all local, state and federal laws and cooperate with law enforcement agencies if they ask us to board our buses or enter the stations. “
But why don’t they provide information to the customers about what is going to happen, they should inform people before they get on a bus, treating passengers like they are sheep that lead to the slaughterhouse ?.
“Unfortunately, even routine checks on means of transport can have a negative impact on our operations and on some customers directly,” said a company statement sent by email.
“We encourage anyone with concerns about what has happened to contact these agencies directly. Greyhound is contacting the agencies to see if there is anything we can do on our part to minimise any negative effects of this process. “
Perhaps it is time for people with conscience to reject the actions of the Border Patrol in Florida, where roads are within a 100-mile radius of the border, which is legally considered a border, with economic and legal actions. (Not to mention our votes in the November elections this year).
Some legal experts say that the Border Patrol has to show that there is a reasonable suspicion that it is looking for specific criminals before conducting operations, or the agents risk violating Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures.
To begin with, it goes without saying that undocumented immigrants should not use Greyhound buses.
The company, which offers its service between Mexico and the United States, has a moral obligation to its customers, and a legal obligation to ensure their safety.
It’s open season to hunt immigrants by presidential decree, is no excuse for not addressing the issue of searches and arrests with transparency, information and goodwill.
The same goes for Motel 6, the chain of motels that is the subject of a lawsuit by a civil rights group in Phoenix for discriminating against Hispanic customers in two places.
Employees – here we call them snitches – gave personal information that clients gave them at the reception to immigration agents, who then arrested seven guests. The employees gave that information without requiring a judicial order from the authorities or showing any reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed, argues the lawsuit filed by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Is it time to boycott companies like Greyhound, Motel 6 and others that lend themselves to questionable practices that violate the spirit of constitutional legality and are deplorable in a country that calls itself “free?”
After all, in their hunt for undocumented immigrants, Border Patrol agents also bother US citizens. And, given the billions of dollars that Trump has asked Congress for more Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, it may not be long before we meet the requirements to be called a police state. .
Sooner or later, police networks will also arrive at your door.
“I will never take the bus again,” says Dobarganes.
Raised with the ideals of freedom and justice for all, you must also ask yourself: What the hell is going on here?
The post While they hunt undocumented immigrants, Border Patrol continues harassment of its citizens appeared first on Conspiracy Talk News.
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