Opinion ID: 3014155
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Roving Checkpoint

Text: Mora-Santana also argues that because he made it through the initial immigration screening at the D.H.S. checkpoint, the government forfeited its right to conduct a second, suspicionless seizure– as Inspector Ortiz did–at the T.S.A. security checkpoint. This, he concludes, was an impermissible roving detention. The government, on the other hand, classifies what happened as having occurred at a fixed checkpoint and, thus, reasonable suspicion was not required and the conviction must stand. 6 “As with other categories of police action subject to Fourth Amendment constraints, the reasonableness of such seizures depends on a balance between the public interest and the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary interference by law officers.” Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 878. In Brignoni-Ponce, the Court evaluated the legitimacy of suspicionless seizures of motorists within 100 miles of the United States border. Ultimately, the Court was “unwilling to let the Border Patrol dispense entirely with the requirement that officers must have a reasonable suspicion to justify rovingpatrol stops.” Id. at 882. The Court rejected the government’s efforts to vest unlimited discretion in the Border Patrol to rove without warning or guidelines within a 200,000 square mile area; the Fourth Amendment interests of individuals would be unduly compromised if “Border Patrol officers could stop motorists at random for questioning, day or night, anywhere within 100 air miles of the 2,000-mile border, on a city street, a busy highway, or a desert road, without any reason to suspect that they have violated any law.” Id. at 883. This case presents a very different scenario than that considered by the Court in Brignoni-Ponce, the case on which Mora-Santana primarily relies. In Brignoni-Ponce, the Court contemplated the specter of erratic and arbitrary government patrols invading the innocent and private routines of daily life in any of the numerous towns and cities near the United States border. Here, we consider the much more focused and open efforts of the government to monitor and protect a discrete, international, transportation hub and 7 port of entry, the St. Thomas airport. The government’s valid interests–in immigration and in customs–are extremely high and the privacy expectations of travelers at the airport are extremely low. Indeed, it is eminently reasonable for all air travelers to expect to be subject to routine questioning for immigration, customs, and security purposes. As the Supreme Court has on many occasions explained, “not only is the expectation of privacy less at the border than in the interior, the Fourth Amendment balance between the interests of the Government and the privacy right of the individual is also struck much more favorably to the Government at the border.” Montoya De Hernandez, 473 U.S. at 539-540 (citations omitted). This is particularly so, we believe, at international airports. It is, of course, true that Inspector Ortiz’s questioning of Mora-Santana at the T.S.A. security checkpoint did not occur at the precise location at which D.H.S. routinely interrogates travelers. What is also true, however, is that the brief interrogation of MoraSantana in the airport, in the general area in which immigration, customs, and security screening occurs, was entirely reasonable and did not transgress the Fourth Amendment. We reject Mora-Santana’s suggestion that once a traveler goes through an initial screening, the government is precluded from immediately acting to rectify any mistake or clear up any uncertainty.