Opinion ID: 326898
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Warrant of Inspection.

Text: 13 The focal point of these appeals is the warrant of inspection which the government sought and obtained from a United States magistrate on June 22, 1974, to authorize the continued operation of the San Clemente immigration traffic checkpoint shortly after recent decisions of this court had sharply curtailed border patrol authority to search or stop passing vehicles at that checkpoint. The warrant, which is set out in full in the margin, 2 concludes that there is probable cause to believe that mass violations of the immigration laws are committed at the San Clemente checkpoint and therefore commands the border patrol to conduct an immigration traffic checkpoint, stopping northbound vehicles to make routine inquiries to determine the immigration status of the occupants. At issue here is the constitutionality of this stop and inquiry procedure. 3 14 We make two further observations about the warrant. First, although the warrant is limited in duration to ten days, it has been renewed 26 times for ten-day periods. (San Francisco Examiner, February 25, 1975, page 6.) The particular warrant before us, then, was by no means a temporary measure; it was simply the first installment in what appears to be a perpetual succession of similar warrants. Second, although the warrant incants the words probable cause, there is no claim that there existed probable cause in the traditional sense of articulable, individuating circumstances which would lead a reasonable agent to believe that illegal aliens were in any particular vehicles. In each case the government has stipulated that there was neither probable cause nor founded suspicion for the stop. The government relies solely on the inspection warrant to justify the stops and inquiries. 15