U.S. Citizens Arrested at Airport for Refusing Border Patrol Questions
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.
