What authority does the Border Patrol have to run checkpoints?
In examining checkpoints, it is important to distinguish them from “roving patrol stops.” A roving patrol stop is one in which agents on patrol select a specific vehicle – automobiles, trucks, buses, boats, even aircraft – from all others then on the road, in the water, or in the air to be stopped for further examination. The courts have long held that such stops must be prefaced on “…specific articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, that reasonably warrant suspicion that the vehicles contain aliens, who may be illegally in the country.” This “reasonable suspicion” standard falls short of probable cause, but is nevertheless a standard that clearly prohibits arbitrary or capricious stops. Checkpoints require all traffic to stop, and, as such, are not subject to selectivity on the part of the agent(s) as are roving stops. There is no explicit statutory authority to conduct checkpoint operations. This authority has evolved consequent to numerous court decis
