Greyhound Continues to Let CBP Agents Harrass Their Customers

Stand-up comic Mohanad Elshieky was taking a Greyhound bus from a gig in Washington state back home to Oregon when the bus he was riding was stopped by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). 

As detailed by Gabe Ortiz of Daily Kos,  CBP has been harassing Greyhound riders for years now because of an “obscure law” that agents believe gives them the right to demand to see the papers of anyone within 100 miles of a border. Advocates have repeatedly called on Greyhound to protect riders from immigration harassment.

When he was singled out by CBP agents on the bus, Elshieky explained to them that he was granted asylum here in the United States, showing the agents his Oregon driver’s license and work authorization card. The agents told Elshieky that he was lying and the documents could pretty much be falsified.  Agents then demanded to see his asylum approval document, but Elshieky, originally from Libya, didn’t have that on him. “They got on the phone with immigration and gave them my name and document number and I can hear the person on the end of the line saying that yes they can see my name and yes, I entered the country legally,” Elshieky continued.

The agent ended the call and lied to Elshieky, saying "there are no records of your Asylum."  The ordeal ended shortly after Elshieky threatened to call his lawyer on them. “They handed my documents back and said ‘next time, have your papers on you’ which means nothing because I did and they said they were fake.”

Border Patrol has been pulling this shit for years, stopping a Latino man last February while he was waiting for a Greyhound bus in Indio, California, because his “shoes looked suspicious,” like a recent border crosser, according to an American Civil Liberties (ACLU) attorney. ”What Greyhound and its passengers need to know is that there is no legal requirement for the company to let Border Patrol board its buses,” the ACLU said.

Greyhound has the power to stop the harassment of bus passengers. “The Fourth Amendment prohibits government agents from entering private property without consent or a warrant, and it protects everyone on U.S. soil—regardless of citizenship—from being detained or searched without cause,” the ACLU continued. “By law, Greyhound is fully capable of saying NO to Border Patrol. So why aren't they?”