Being Detained Part 2

Where Border Patrol Agents have "reasonable suspicion" that a vehicle contains illegal aliens, they may stop the vehicle and briefly question those occupants reasonably believed to be aliens as to their right to be or remain in the United States of America. Such "detention" may last for a reasonable period of time while the Border Patrol Agent conducts lawful "investigative activities" to quickly confirm or dispel their suspicion.

In many parts of the United States of America all the roads leading away from the southern border area are sealed off with US Border Patrol Agents. These Agents operate "checkpoints" as deep as 60 miles inside the United States. Tens of thousands of illegal aliens and drug smugglers are caught at these checkpoints every year.

Federal officers can freely stop vehicles for inspection at these checkpoints without any required level of suspicion or justification. That is the law. Most of these checkpoints have separate areas reserved nearby where a vehicle can then be nearly stripped under what is called "secondary inspection". The referral of a vehicle to "secondary inspection" needs only to be "selective" and does not require any "reasonable suspicion".

It is best if you do not annoy, abuse, alarm, alert, tease, torment, or disturb a Border Patrol Agent at any of these checkpoints.

Border Patrol Agents cannot and will not take your drivers license away from you. (The federal agent working at a legal Port of Entry can take your driver's license or almost any other documentation away from you.)

The Border Patrol Agent will engage you in "consensual conversation". "Consensual conversation" is not interrogation. Consensual conversation is ... conversation.

"Good morning, how are you, that's a nice gun you have in your pocket", are all simply one side of a consensual conversation, but in polite society they do require that you make some verbal response.