The Fourth Amendment guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” Most Americans are not subjected to constant suspicion, arbitrary searches, or the fear of armed intrusions into their private sanctuaries. These practices obliterate personal security and freedom.

Yet the Fourth Amendment is applied far more loosely in the border zone, where federal agents wield “extraordinary” authority. In this zone, agents may conduct warrantless searches of anyone–citizen or not–and carry out expedited deportations without courts and with sharply diminished due process. Within 25 miles of the border, agents may enter private property without a warrant. The president has now authorized agents to force entry into homes without judicial approval. This is not normal, and it is not consistent with American constitutional tradition.

Few Americans realize that the border zone extends 100 miles from any land border or coastline. It includes more than 20 major cities–including New York, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia–as well as all of the Northeastern states and roughly half of Pennsylvania. Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population lives under extraordinary federal powers.

More troubling, these same powers are being exercised far beyond the border zone, including in Minneapolis, 150 miles inland.

As federal immigration operations expand, the distant becomes immediate, the exceptional becomes routine, and the targeted becomes indiscriminate. This is a clear overreach and a dangerous departure from the constitutional norms that define a free society.

LASSIE MacDONALD

State College

Submitted by Virtual Newsroom