Chelsea-based activists challenge Greyhound
By: Sarah Gabrielli
Tags: Border Patrol, Greyhound, NYC, Immigration, Activism

Activists from the Solidarity Center demonstrate outside of the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal in the Bronx.

There is not an empty patch of wall at the Solidarity Center. The eclectic Chelsea office space, which serves as a meeting spot for local activist groups, has curated posters and flyers from across the political spectrum. But each individual cause shares common moral values.

“It’s always been based on grassroots activism and antiracist activism.” said co director Sarah Flounders who helped to organize the center in 1992. “That’s an important part of it; to challenge backwardness and bigotry because, when you challenge it, people’s own consciousnesses change.”

On Friday, Fight for Immigrants and Refugees Everywhere (FIRE) organized a demonstration outside of the George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal in the Bronx. FIRE, joined by other like-minded activist groups from the Solidarity Center, protested to keep ICE raids off of Greyhound buses and distributed pamphlets to educate riders on their rights.

Over the past few months, a number of Chelsea-based activists have rallied around this specific immigration issue. In August, they organized a similar protest outside of Port Authority to educate riders and push back against ICE’s practice of boarding buses across the country and detaining people that can not prove citizenship.

Federal law gives ICE policing power within 100 miles of any U.S. border. Both ICE and Greyhound believe that this includes jurisdiction in private spaces like a commercial bus line.

“We are required to comply with the law by allowing Border Patrol agents to board our buses when they ask to do so,” Greyhound said in a statement last year. “Our drivers face arrest and fines for obstructing these agents, and we would not want to put their safety, or the safety of our passengers at risk by attempting to physically stop a federal agent from boarding.”

But according to the ACLU, if the agents are not at a border checkpoint and do not have a warrant to search the bus, they are violating the constitutional rights of passengers. Lisa Nowlin, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Washington, is working on a federal court case against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“If you’re within 100 miles of the border, the constitution still applies,” Nowlin said. “The fact that someone looks latino is not reasonable suspicion that they’ve done anything wrong or that they are here illegally.” Additionally, the raids disproportionately affect the lower class because this demographic most commonly relies on buses as an inexpensive alternative to trains, planes or cars.

The immigration rights groups from the Solidarity Center agree with, and continue to advocate for, the ACLU’s constitutional assessment.

“[ICE agents] are attacking members of the working class who don’t have enough money to drive their own car,” said volunteer Motema Makasi, who helped to organize the Port Authority rally in August. “They’re specifically going after the poorest of those groups because they’re hoping that no one else will care.”

Another Chelsea-based advocacy group, Disabled in Action (DIA), has its own issues with Greyhound. Unlike some of its competitors, such as Megabus, Greyhound is not accessible for people with disabilities.

DIA volunteers Michael and Robert Acevedo, who also attended the immigration rally, must often ride with Greyhound due to its specific routes. Though Robert typically uses an electric wheelchair, he must travel with a manual one, fold it up underneath the bus and climb up the stairs into a regular seat. He says a lot of wheelchair-bound people use this method.

On a recent Greyhound trip to Sandusky, Ohio, the married couple encountered ICE agents but did not see any searches.

“[An agent] was standing at the bus stop and there was a car there,” Michael Acevedo said, adding “they offered to carry our bags to bring it to the paratransit.”

Like the Acevodos, activists from DIA and the Solidarity Center are taking up this issue that does not directly impact their community.

“If I’m not doing this for myself, I’m doing this for future generations and that’s the way we have to think,” said DIA president Jean Ryan. “The people who fought for the buses — they fought for us, and people who fought for other things — they fought for us.”