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March 27, 2013

2 U.S. Citizens Arrested After Refusing to Disclose Status to Border Patrol Before Domestic Flight 
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Two Ithaca, New York, residents have been released on bond after
refusing to answer questions about their immigration status as they
attempted to board a domestic flight in Texas. Omar Figueredo and Nancy
Morales were stopped twice by Border Patrol agents before they could
proceed to a security checkpoint at an airport in Brownsville. Both
times they refused to disclose their citizenship status. The first time,
they missed their flight. After returning a second time and refusing to
answer again, they were arrested by police and held for roughly seven
hours. They documented both incidents on video. Democracy Now! spoke
with Omar Figueredo after he was released on Tuesday.

Omar Figueredo: "What I was really trying to accomplish was to put into
question the authority that the Border Patrol has to harass and to force
people to answer questions that they don't have to answer when they're
traveling within the 60-to-100-mile border zone in the U.S."

Both Omar Figueredo and Nancy Morales are U.S. citizens. Omar said his
action was part of a larger trend of people refusing to answer what they
say are unwarranted and racially targeted questions at Border Patrol
checkpoints, and then uploading video footage online.

 

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