Opinion ID: 204528
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Truck Registration

Text: The truck Olivares-Pacheco was driving was registered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and the agents testified that this is a common destination for those transporting illegal aliens. A vehicle's registration may, under some circumstances, add to reasonable suspicion. We have ruled that a Kansas license plate in Texas may add to reasonable suspicion when it was known that there was a robust drug smuggling trade route to Kansas at the time. [16] We have also held that the fact that a car was registered in San Angelo, yet was taking an indirect route to San Angelo which was less-heavily patrolled, added to reasonable suspicion. [17] The fact that the truck in the instant case was registered in the Dallas-Fort Worth area adds no suspicion whatsoever. It is statistically far more likely that an innocent person who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area would take an interstate highway to his or her home than would an alien-trafficker. Indeed, the Dallas-Fort Worth area is a huge metropolitan area, and it is more than reasonable to assume that a significant portion of the legitimate traffic traveling east on I-20 from Odessa is headed for that area. The truck was neither headed for a faraway place, nor was it taking some sort of suspicious, indirect route. Rather, Olivares-Pacheco was traveling due east on the most direct route to one of the largest metropolitan areas in Texas, where his truck's registration  presumably like his identification  would indicate is his home. Furthermore, it is a fair assumption that most large areas afford work and anonymity and thus are magnets for illegal aliens For these reasons, the fact that the truck was registered in Garland, Texas provides minimal if any suspicion. Indeed, if every similarly situated vehicle that is registered in Dallas and traveling east on I-20 from Odessa were to be pulled over, traffic would be backed up for untold miles.