They didn't ask to check my laptop or anything, but did want ID etc.
Can't talk to the legality of it all but they do exist.
But if CBP could not convince a judge or jury that you'd crossed the Canadian border, and demanded a search of your vehicle and found e.g. an eighth of weed, that evidence could probably be tossed in court; CBP needs both the fact of your crossing of the actual border and a reasonable suspicion to search you.
Having lived in both Europe in the US for large part of my life, I can tell you that this completely misses the mark.
Yes, you can be ID'd, but what law enforcement can get away with in the US would be inconceivable in most of Western Europe. I was never afraid of the cops before I came to the states.
Edit: Spelling.
At the border, sure, but inside the country?
But I guess it was speaking English without an awful accent. :-)
Denying the Holocaust and using Nazi symbols is illegal in Germany, but "papers please" is normal? I think they learned the wrong lesson.
I am now 32 years old. I have been in a police stop when driving my car only twice (and one of those was a mistake, I thought they wanted me to stop, but they actually meant another car).
I have never been controlled or ID checked by the police in any way when not travelling by car. Exceptions are border controls, of course. And private entities wishing to check my age: discos, liquor stores and so on.
On another note: I'm really tired about all this attitude we get from Americans regarding Nazi symbols and free speech. Maybe take a minute to contemplate why we have those laws?
"Because of Holocaust" is correct, but not what I'm getting at. We have those, because Americans (together with the other Allied Powers) forced us to after the war.
Unfortunately Americans have this tendency to think that their system is the very best and can't imagine why anyone could or should have another system, despite the fact that everywhere they were involved in nation-building they actively promoted other systems.
If you're saying that absent any other reason, you would have to have recently crossed a border for the initial stop to be legal, maybe you're right. But random checkpoints for intoxicated drivers happen everywhere, and are legal.
As you point out, Border Patrol are fully sworn law enforcement officers and can therefore enforce other laws besides mere border protection statutes.
However the legal requirements to perform a search of a vehicle (incl. the need to have crossed the border) are different from the requirements to stop a vehicle to interview the driver (which any LE can do incl. Border Patrol), which is one of the reasons that DUI checkpoints are legal in some circumstances.