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574 LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC POLICY [Vol. 11:567
the individual’s right to personal security free from arbitrary interference
by law officers” to determine whether the search in question was
reasonable. 37 The Court accepted the government’s argument that
public interest demands effective measures to prevent undocumented
immigrants from entering at the Mexican border. 38 Further, the Court
accepted that eighty-five percent of the undocumented immigrants in
the United States are from Mexico. 39
On the other side of the test, the Court found that an officer stopping
a vehicle and questioning its occupants was only a modest intrusion
on a person’s individual liberty. 40 The stop usually takes less
than a minute, is limited to the parts of the vehicle that can be seen,
and only requires occupants to answer a few questions and possibly
produce a document proving that person’s right to be in the United
States. 41 By comparing these stops to “a limited search . . . for the
protection of an officer investigating suspicious behavior of persons
he reasonably believed to be armed and dangerous,” the Court applied
the “reasonable suspicion” standard adopted in Terry v. Ohio. 42 Thus,
the Court equated the possibility that undocumented immigrants might
be in a car with the possibility that an officer might be in physical
37. Id. at 878 (citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20–21 (1968); Camara v. Municipal
Court, 387 U.S. 523, 536–37 (1967)). In Almeida-Sanchez, the Court held that the
Fourth Amendment prohibited the use of roving patrols to search vehicles—not just
to question occupants—without a warrant or probable cause except for at the border
and its functional equivalents. Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266, 273
(1973).
38. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 878–79. The Court’s conclusions reflected the
popular belief at the time about immigration. President Ford blamed Mexican immigrants
for the poor state of the U.S. economy, and former CIA director William Colby
even said that Mexican immigrants were a greater threat to the United States than the
Soviet Union. RUDOLFO F. ACUNA, ANYTHING BUT MEXICAN: CHICANOS IN TEMPO-
RARY AMERICA 114–15 (1996). Prior to the 1920s, Mexican nationals could cross the
border without restriction largely due to the need for their labor. During the Depression,
Mexicans were a scapegoat for the poor economic conditions and over half a
million Mexican Americans were “repatriated.” When the United States needed labor
again, it began the Bracero Program, a temporary labor program for Mexicans from
1943 to 1964. The anti-immigrant sentiment reemerged in the 1970s. Tisha R. Tallman,
Liberty, Justice, and Equality: An Examination of Past, Present, and Proposed
Immigration Policy Reform Legislation, 30 N.C. J. INT’L L. & COM. REG. 869,
883–85 (2005).
39. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. at 879. As support, the Court cites records that 80%
and 92% of the deportable immigrants arrested were from Mexico in 1970 and 1974,
respectively. Id. at 879 n.5. The Court failed to entertain the possibility that the
percentage of arrested deportable immigrants who were Mexican might be different
than the percentage of deportable immigrants, arrested or not, who were Mexican.
40. Id. at 879–80.
41. Id. at 880.
42. Id.