> As an American citizen, you can refuse to have your electronics searched to reenter the US

Sure. And lose your day to being held for fuck all. Like I hear you, and I absolutely have the vindictive streak that would drive me to do this under the right circumstances. But you should be prepared to be detained, harassed, all while maintaining your cool and collecting detailed mental notes for follow through with a lawsuit.

And don't forget that you will then be harassed every time you cross the boarder again. After all, you're one of those trouble makers.

> you will then be harassed every time you cross the boarder again. After all, you're one of those trouble makers

I’ve honestly been a dick twice through immigration, once accidentally and once a bit more purposely. I haven’t seen any evidence of this pattern of retribution. Like, civil-rights activists exist and aren’t constantly held up at the border.

Memorize your lawyer's phone number, and make sure you can get to a phone.

> Memorize your lawyer's phone number, and make sure you can get to a phone

If you’re planning on pulling a stunt like this, a better plan is to have someone on the outside who will call your lawyer. Or better yet, tell your lawyer what you’re doing so they can call you.

What "stunt" are you referring to? Placing a call to your lawyer so they can get you out of a bad situation?

> What "stunt" are you referring to?

Refusing to be searched at the border.

If you are a white US citizen you have nothing to be concerned about.

Unless you have friends, family or empathy.

Brown green card holders have it worst, but white, native-born US citizens are fucked too. The agent can decide you look Mexican to him; the agent can decide you're not sufficiently enthusiastic about Trump.

And if there's no due process for non-citizens, there's no due process for citizens either. That congress is allowing this to happen is deeply, deeply fucked.

Yep, without going into too much detail. My sister had a green card, is white, and clearly got a bored customs agent, because she got held in the little room with all the 'problem cases' for a couple of hours. It doesn't take much..

You can refuse, but does that mean 8 hours on a hard plastic chair in a waiting room?

For a regime that's brazenly breaking the law, the upper boundary to what they can do to you is unlimited.

If they can put people onto an airplane and fly them to a Salvadoran gulag in the middle of recess in a court case about how they can't do that - and then laugh about it - the law is very clearly not a limit they care about.

I have doubts that waving your passport or your service medals in their face will at the end of the day, prove very convincing either.

ICE scooped up citizens and didn’t listen to them for weeks, way before this administration

one of the failings behind their unprofessionalism is that the civil case treatment doesnt afford the same protections and right to legal counsel as a criminal case

is this one of those things you need a source for, or can you listen to the concerns of other people and find the source yourself

While you can do that they can make your life hell. I encourage you to do it and report back for everyone here.

This presumes the government will be acting in good faith, which is increasingly unlikely day to day.

Unless you are naturalized in which case there might be suspicions that were illegally naturalized (for example you did not disclose all social media handles that you own in your application).

Or you could be a birthright citizen in which case you can be detained just to be the test subject in the supreme court case.

In summary no one is safe except Trump at this point.

Can you actually take a cab across a border? I've never tried, but I'd assume cab drivers wouldn't want to cross a border. I'm curious to see how that would work.

Not a regular cab. There are specialty companies that you can find on sites like Viator.

Gotcha, that makes sense.