This is good, and I hope it stands. Once you demonstrate that you are in fact a citizen of the US, you cannot be denied entry, and IMO all the regular Constitutional protections should immediately apply.
While I have dual citizenship, I live and work in the US, and nearly always travel on my US passport.
The boarder guard gave me a hard time about traveling with my children and without my spouse, but after ascertaining that I wasn't abducting my own children in a custodial dispute, let me in, and then got chatty.
He said something along the lines of, "I could tell you were annoyed that I had to call your wife, but if your kids ever went missing, you'd be glad that we checked."
Since we were just having a chat and he seemed friendly, I let him know that I was a dual-citizen, and asked a few questions I'd had about dual-citizens crossing boarders. One of them was, "would it have made any difference if I was coming into Canada as a Canadian, instead of an American?"
His answer was, "As a foreigner, I can deny your entry into Canada for all sorts of reasons. As a Canadian, I have to let you into Canada so long as I don't have reason to doubt the authenticity of your citizenship. Basically, if I think you're a foreign criminal, I can deny you entry. If I believe you're a Canadian criminal, I have to let you in then arrest you."
BTW, he also let me know that the biggest reason that dual-citizens should travel on the passport of the country they reside in is hassles over import duties. AKA, if I'd been entering as a Canadian driving a US registered vehicle into Canada, he would have been suspicious that I was importing it, and likely to charge me import duties, or at least given me more of a hassle about making sure it was going back to the US at the end of our weekend camping trip.
Obviously, if my children were ever abducted, I'd want every law enforcement officer everywhere looking for them, and doing whatever was necessary to find them.
On the other hand, I dislike the construct that I as a parent am required to have a "permission slip" from my wife to take my kids camping north of the border.
Honestly, I think this could pretty easily be solved with a technological solution. Just some (optional) system where parents can alert the government of neighboring countries "I trust my spouse and they can cross the border with my kids at any time" or "we're in a custody arrangement/domestic dispute don't let them through!"
Tie it to the digital info they already have related to passports, and this becomes frictionless.
It's important to add the caveat that different countries have different views on this. For example, my understanding is that while the US does not ban dual citizenship, it is illegal for a US citizen to enter the US on a non-US passport.
I think the bigger issue with trying to do this would be getting an ESTA/visa for US entry on your foreign passport. Anecdotal reports seem to suggest it's possible, but apparently there's a question on the ESTA form asking if you are a US citizen, and if you say yes, they're supposed to deny you.
As history has shown[0], this is easier said than done. Legally US citizens can't be deported or denied entry, but that sure doesn't stop the government from trying!
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Americans_from_...
[1]: https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/legal-documents/lati..., "The bench trial then began on December 2, 2013. On the first day of trial, before opening statements, plaintiff’s counsel reported that plaintiff’s daughter — a United States citizen born in the United States and a witness disclosed on her witness list — was not permitted to board her flight from Kuala Lumpur to attend trial, evidently because she too was on a no-fly list." ; https://reason.com/2013/12/04/wanting-to-testify-in-no-fly-l...
(IIRC, the mother was also on the no-fly list, and that was context of the case itself, even. One could rightly also refer to her as an injured party too.)
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2012cv1...
Doesn't the 5th amendment specifically guarantee the right to indictment by a Grand Jury for 'a capital or other infamous crime'? Or was this considered moot because the same amendment gives a caveat for a 'time of war or public danger'?*
Your link seems to recognize this distinction and seems to sidestep the 5th amendment question by narrowing the scope (although I admit I haven't read it all in detail):
>"The Court recognizes that its holding regarding the political question doctrine is inconsistent with Judge Bates’s decision in Al-Aulaqi v. Obama. That earlier case alleged that the United States’ intention to kill Anwar Al-Aulaqi violated the Fifth Amendment. In contrast, the instant Complaint raises the issue more directly and acutely, asserting a claim for damages for the actual taking of Anwar Al-Aulaqi’s life without regard to Fifth Amendment protections."
*this obviously adds some additional risk to perpetual 'global wars on terrorism' and the ability to rules-lawyer your way into any outcome you want
If you're crossing a border, customs having the right to search you isn't a silly idea - the government has the right to enforce customs and tax/duty laws. Being able to search items you are bringing across the border is in line with that.
Where I think the nuance comes in is that carte blanche search rights don't make much sense in a era when they can search you electronic devices that aren't really related to customs and tax/duty laws.
I am not a constitutional scholar, but very few of the rights given to the government specify citenzry as important. Most of the rights specified as not granted refer to people or persons, not citizens.
So your sentence should be "once you demonstrate that you are in fact a person in the United States..."
"Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state."
That countries can (as a rule) deny non-citizens entry for whatever reason they so desire should be obvious.
In practice, it's probably like the county in Idaho in which a law professor once posited you could get away with murder[0] because there'd be no "jury of your peers" to convict you.
[0]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=691642
This doesn't sound right - if it was true, border officers would be free to mug and rape.
I'm chuffed about this, but I won't celebrate until the decision applies to non-citizens crossing the border too. Right now a border official can tell a non-US citizen to do absolutely anything, and if they fail to comply they can simply be denied entry, with no reasonable right of appeal, no matter how unreasonable the border official's request. Border officials do and will continue to abuse that privilege until reined in.
There is no requirement for an agent to assume your nationality and let you through, no? You still need to show your passport even when returning home.
Of course, all this sovereign citizen nonsense ignores reality and tries to pursue (nonexistent) legal 'gotchas' like you're rules-lawyering your way into a 'rules as written' game breaking combo in Magic: The Gathering.
I have no dog in this fight, just an intellectual curiosity.
It would also only really apply at a land crossing, I imagine. You can't even get on a plane that's entering the US without showing your passport at the departure gate. At that point your only option if you really are without documentation is to find the nearest US consulate and get some travel papers.
My last flight to Seattle from Mexico a few weeks ago (also, note that I'm an LPR, and not a citizen) I walked up to the CBP immigration counter, looked at a webcam, the officer looked at his computer, said "[my name]?" "Yes." "You're good to go."
I had, of course, my passport and green card on me, but they were held by my side the entire time. He didn't ask for them.
You don't really have to "trust YT" here; there are plenty of videos of the encounters themselves, where people stubbornly refuse to answer the CBP agent's questions until the agent gives up and waves them through. Sure, you can argue that they're staged or something, but the sheer number of them would at least put some doubt on that claim.
/before people ask: I’m white my wife is Mexican.
Please clarify if I’ve got the wrong read on what you mean though.
Like I said, the best I’ve found is some information on a movement of “First Amendment auditors” but a literal reading of what they’re about has them testing First Amendment jurisprudence which isn’t exactly stress-testing your Fourth Amendment rights in an reentry line at the border, hence the request for clarification.
In any case, the 'Freedom Auditor' concept mentioned in your initial comment sounds, to me, like the express line to "Please wait over here while I get my supervisor" from your CBP agent.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/a-history-...
Even in the period of supposedly free international travel before WW1, the US government barred a large number of people from entering the country.
There are plenty of videos on YouTube of people sitting in their cars and just repeating "Am I being detained?" and "Am I free to go?" over and over until the CBP officer gets tired of it and lets them go. As should be the case, IMO; the existence of these checkpoints is absurd.
The "freedom auditors" are expressing their rights to doing things that are _defined as legal_ but regularly infringed upon (taking pictures of public property like police station lobbies, post offices and libraries). Refusing to show documents at a port of entry isn't ever defined as legal, AFAICT.
Now, this federal ruling is kind of unrelated. It's not about asking for documentation, it's about the ability to search an arrested person's phone after they've been arrested.
To be clear, I think it's 100% okay for the border patrol to require proof of citizenship at the border. I just think that the moment you prove it, the border patrol becomes just like any other federal police force, no extra powers just because they're at the border.
Depends on the border that you're trying to cross.
They have a process for this, it just takes a long time to manually confirm you are who you say you are.