This notion that any place within 100 miles of a border is a "4th Amendment Free Zone" is an urban legend. The ACLU should stop spreading it.
The exact issue we're talking about here has been tried all the way through the Supreme Court, which found that the border search exemption only applies to people with some nexus to an actual border crossing.
Wrong. It found that warrantless “border” searches on public highways leading to it away from the Mexican border were legal based on either perceived ethnicity of drivers or passengers or even no individualized basis for suspicion. No nexus between the searched person or vehicle and an actual border crossing beyond being on a road which eventually led to or away from the Mexican border is required.
It's true that the only places that the decision applies to are public highways, not (e.g.) the interior of residences or businesses, so it's not any place. But it's pretty extensive.
Also, I can't tell if you're nitpicking my summary or if you actually do believe there's a 100-mile-wide Constitution-free zone hugging the US border.
Martinez-Fuerte.
> Also, I can't tell if you're nitpicking my summary or if you actually do believe there's a 100-mile-wide Constitution-free zone hugging the US border.
“100-mile Constitution-free zone” is a simplification that, like any simplification, is somewhat inaccurate; there is a broad (unclear as to it's maximum limits, the 100 miles is current executive policy) in which the courts have allowed, in fairly broad circumstances, substantially lower standards for search and seizure than are otherwise Constitutionally applicable in the US, rendering the protections of the Fourth Amendment in practice much weaker.
In Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, supra, the question was whether a roving patrol unit constitutionally could search a vehicle for illegal aliens simply because it was in the general vicinity of the border. We recognized that important law enforcement interests were at stake, but held that searches by roving patrols impinged so significantly on Fourth Amendment privacy interests that a search could be conducted without consent only if there was probable cause to believe that a car contained illegal aliens, at least in the absence of a judicial warrant authorizing random searches by roving patrols in a given area. Compare 413 U.S. at 413 U. S. 273, with id. at 413 U. S. 283-285 (POWELL, J., concurring), and id. at 413 U. S. 288 (WHITE, J., dissenting). We held in United States v. Ortiz, supra, that the same limitations applied to vehicle searches conducted at a permanent checkpoint.
It allowed the actions in this case specifically because they were not searches, in the same sense as a traffic stop is not a search, and the police, having pulled your car to the side of a city street for having expired tags, cannot without probable cause demand that you open your trunk to allow inspection.
* https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
Martinez-Fuerte sharply limited Almeida-Sanchez: Almeida-Sanchez (1973), it's true, seemed to require warrantless border searches to be at the border, but Martinez-Fuerte (1976) allowed warrantless “border” searches at immigration checkpoints on public highways leading to it away from the Mexican border, even without any individualized basis for suspicion (much less probable cause) or when the decision to make stops was based entirely on the perceived ethnicity of drivers/passengers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_border_precleara...