Border Patrol Turns Immigration Checkpoint Into Drug Trap

Law enforcement agencies (particularly police departments) are under heavy media scrutiny for a seemingly steady incline in officers stepping outside of their jurisdiction, bullying citizens, and employing excessive force.

One such incident occurred in early May near the New York/Canadian border. Jessica Cooke, a 21-year-old American college student on the verge of graduating was driving her car in upstate New York when she was pulled over by two Customs and Border Protection officers. Upon pulling her over, the young woman (who got her degree in law enforcement leadership) showed the officers her ID and began filming the incident.

That should have been the end of it. Once the agents saw that she was an American citizen driving in America, she should have been released. Cooke was told she was pulled over because she was acting nervous. She eventually got the officers to return her ID and was told she could leave at any time, however they were going to keep her car until a K-9 unit arrived to inspect her trunk.

One officer orders Cooke to get back into her car and that if she doesn’t comply, he will put her in it himself. Cooke responds that she will sue the agent if he puts his hands on her to which he replies, “Go for it.” Then the camera is knocked out of her hands and she starts to scream. Apparently, one of the officers pushed her against the car and to the ground while the other deployed a stun-gun into her back. Cooke was further detained in a holding cell for several hours and was never charged with anything. However she was told that she may be charged with assaulting an officer.

Professor of immigration law, Rick Su, commented on Cooke’s ordeal, saying that, “the federal government is, in some ways troublingly, using immigration checkpoints to enforce other areas of law enforcement, including the war on drugs.”

It’s one thing if a border guard stops someone legitimately and obviously sees they are engaging in criminal activity, but it’s quite another to pull someone over because they look nervous and insist they let you search their trunk. This was at an immigration checkpoint inside the US, not even at the border. They are overstepping in the hopes that if they find something, their means of discovery won’t be questioned.

It makes me wonder what/who is at power behind the scenes and what their real goal might be. A NY Times story found that, from 2010 to 2013, checkpoints in the U.S. only accounted for catching 2% of illegal immigrants, yet in 2013 alone almost 350,000 pounds of cannabis have been seized at the same checkpoints.

If the border patrol is just becoming the DEA with a new name, we have some serious problems on our hands. In my estimation, it seems that the public is quickly approaching a point of losing patience with the federal government’s stubborn adherence to poor science and bad policy regarding cannabis. It’s time to stop wasting resources and time trying to contain a wildly popular and safe substance.