A cell phone video between a middle school teacher and a border control agent has gone viral this week.
The agent stopped Shane Parmely in New Mexico about 35 miles north of the border and asked if she was an American citizen. “Are we crossing the border?” Parmely asked. “I’ve never been asked if I’m a citizen before when I’m traveling down the road.”
A family member traveling with Parmely recorded the conversation, which was later shared on Parmely’s Facebook page on Friday, July 21.
During their conversation, the mother and English teacher asked if she was being detained. The agent told her she was.
Parmely’s friend Gretta Rodriguez is used to being pulled over and asked to prove her citizenship. “(Shane’s) kids don’t go through any of that,” she told KFMB. “Every time we go, my kids get aggressively interrogated. And so they’ve learned to deal with it.”
Parmely refused to answer the agent’s questions to show solidarity with her friends who are regularly questioned by the Border Patrol. “It’s horrifying to hear what has happened to my friends’ kids, who are just brown,” she said.
The Boder Patrol spokesman Mark Endicott released the following statement,
Border Patrol checkpoints are critical tool for the enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws. At a Border Patrol checkpoint, an agent may question a vehicle’s occupants about their citizenship, place of birth, and request document proof of immigration status, how legal status was obtained and make quick observations of what is in plain view in the interior of the vehicle.
During the course of the immigration inspection, if an occupant refuse to answer an agent’s questions, the agent may detain the driver for a reasonable amount of time until he or she can make a determination regarding the occupant’s immigration status. It is agency policy that all individuals with whom we interact are treated with dignity and respect.”
Parmely and her family were detained for approximately an hour and a half before they were released. The San Diego Tribune reports that during their detainment Parmely’s son asked to use the restroom. The agent said that the boy would not be allowed to relieve himself until his mother answered the question. Another agent appeared a few minutes later and escorted the boy to the toilet. Parmely never answered the agent’s question.
What would you have done?
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