Help us share information with bus passengers about their rights. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims the authority to question people, for any reason at all, within 100 miles of any national or coastal border. This zone encompasses New Hampshire and most of New England. Across the country, there have been increasing reports of CBP stopping bus passengers to check their citizenship status, without a warrant, reasonable suspicion or probable cause.
We should not have to prove our citizenship just to ride the bus. Allowing government agents to demand that we ‘show our papers’ any time they feel like it is a threat to our freedom and democracy.
Here's what you can do:
- Call Concord Coach Lines and tell them: stop allowing Border Patrol agents to question your passengers. People should be able to take the bus without fear of unfounded interrogation and deportation. Your company has the right to say no to Border Patrol - now is the time to do it. Call Concord Coach Lines: 603-228-3300
- Spread the word! Download this flyer - ENGLISH or SPANISH. Print several copies and take them to your local Greyhound or Concord Trailways station. Hand them out to passengers! Just make sure you don't interfere with immigration agents or other officials.
- See immigration agents asking passengers about their citizenship status? You have the right to record them! As always, make sure you don't interfere with them.
Here's what we are doing:
The ACLU of New Hampshire has filed two lawsuits to find out more about what immigration agents are doing in New Hampshire.
New England ACLU Affiliates v. DHS, et al.
ACLU affiliates in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont filed a lawsuit to require government agencies to turn over records about civil rights violations arising from immigration enforcement in their states. The lawsuit was filed against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It seeks records concerning interior enforcement operations including Border Patrol checkpoints and bus raids, ICE arrests at courthouses, and the targeted arrests of immigrants’ rights activists.
The State of New Hampshire v. McCarthy, et al.
The ACLU of New Hampshire filed a motion challenging the constitutionality of the border patrol checkpoints that occurred August and September 2017 on Interstate 93 in Woodstock, New Hampshire. Woodstock is a small town (population 1,374) in the White Mountains—a popular tourist attraction—that is approximately 90 driving miles from the Canadian border. The ACLU-NH filed this motion on behalf of 18 individuals who, during these checkpoints, were travelling in New Hampshire lawfully and were seized and searched without any suspicion that they had committed a crime.