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Comment by jcranmer | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, the map isn't accurate. The actual definition of the "100 mile zone" comes from 8 CFR 287 (see https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/8/287.1), which says:

> The term external boundary, as used in section 287(a)(3) of the Act, means the land boundaries and the territorial sea of the United States extending 12 nautical miles from the baselines of the United States determined in accordance with international law.

What does that mean? That means that the 100-mile radius does not start from the Chesapeake Bay, it starts from about 13 miles off the Eastern Shore. Washington, D.C., for example, is not within this zone. Nor is Chicago or any part of Illinois within the zone--Lake Michigan doesn't have any 12-nautical mile basis to start counting from.

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The ACLU, MIT researchers, think tank representatives and the border patrol itself contradict your claim in the article.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1357

https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone...

Neither of your sources clarifies the interpretation I gave or offers any sort of refutation. The link I gave and the text I copied provides the definition of "external boundary" for these purposes.

The 100-mile border zone is being enforced. Are you contradicting the news articles, videos and other first-hand accounts of raids taking place far from the border? The evidence is right in front of your eyes.

I'm not disputing that there is a 100-mile border zone.

I'm disputing that the depiction of the border zone is inaccurate with respect to the water borders, which greatly skews the map around the Chesapeake Bay and Lake Michigan.

If you want to convince me that my interpretation is wrong, please either:

a) Provide a link to a court ruling or CBP interpretation that the 100 miles starts at the coast and not the international waters boundary at 12nmi, or

b) Provide a link to evidence that checkpoints are being conducted under the provision of this regulation that are occurring within 100 miles of the coast but not within 100 miles of the international waters boundary.

If the cbp itself claims authority then a court ruling either way is irrelevant since courts generally won't preemptively judge unless someone shows standing to bring about a suit, which doesn't happen until after the cbp asserts it's authority with direct action.

You can moot just about any argument about the law with this argument, so that's not a very interesting rebuttal.

My point was exactly that point about the parent, so, thanks.

No, that doesn't work: he cited the actual statute that backs up what he's saying in plain language.

I don't think you and I are reading English the same way.

Can you expand on that somehow?

B) The article points out that the CBP has killed at least one person 160 miles from the coast.

So, that covers the “but not within 100 miles of the international waters boundary” part of your request.

I’m not sure what that proves except that CBP recognizes no limits on its jurisdiction.

The ACLU page includes the following claim:

> And still CBP cheats its way to more interior encroachment, for example, by claiming that the Great Lakes shared with Canada are “functional equivalents of the border” so that all of Michigan and Chicago are in its reach.

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to provide any support for that, but presumably they have some basis for saying that.

Their basis is that they have documents from CBP claiming authority over a "functional equivalent" of the border, but they do not themselves agree with that assessment. There's a page they have with documents from a FOIA lawsuit where they more or less say that directly.

Lake Michigan is not shared with Canada. Chicago is not within 100 miles of Lake Huron, Lake Erie, or Lake Superior.

I'm sure it's not legally relevant but, hydrologically speaking, Michigan and Huron are a single lake.

> Nor is Chicago or any part of Illinois within the zone--Lake Michigan doesn't have any 12-nautical mile basis to start counting from.

This makes perfect sense - the actual border is nearly 300 miles from Chicago - but I guess one question is, does the Border Patrol know this, or do they treat Chicago as being in the border zone?

As someone else pointed out, the ACLU seem to think Chicago is included in the zone. I wonder if that's based on any facts they've seen.

The ACLU have documents showing that CBP think Chicago is included in the border zone.

There seems to be two different units being used. Supposedly the border zone is 100 "air miles" which is later implied to be a factor 1.14 larger than regular miles.

So the 100 air miles mean 114 miles, and those extra 12 nautical miles ends up not mattering for both west and east coasts. You are right about Chicago though.

US does not recognise international treaty of territorial waters.

The US has not ratified UNCLOS, but it still abides by many of the stipulations, particularly the 12-nautical mile limit of territorial waters. Given that the legal definition explicitly calls out the 12-nautical mile limit, I fail to see how your comment is relevant.

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