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Immigration cops literally take Black woman off bus for “overstaying her tourist visa’

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President Donald Trump’s hard stand on immigration caught a woman visiting from Jamaica off guard in Florida when Customs and Border Protection agents boarded a Greyhound bus and began asking passengers for ID. The women, reportedly from Jamaica, was questioned and then removed from the bus. The Huffington Post reported that someone shot a video of the incident, where one of the passengers asked agents, “Why do I have to show ID if I haven’t committed a crime?” It’s unclear whether it was the woman that was then detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities who made the comment. She apparently did not resist arrest. Later in the day, Customs and Border Patrol released a statement that it has the woman, believed to be from Jamaica, in custody and being investigated because her tourist visa had expired. “While performing an immigration inspection at a Fort Lauderdale bus station, Border Patrol agents identified a passenger who was illegally residing in the United States,” the agency told the Huffington Post in a released written statement. “The subject was an adult female that had overstayed her tourist visa. She was arrested and transported to the Dania Beach Border Patrol station for further investigation and later turned over to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Enforcement Removal Operations (ERO) for removal proceedings.” The woman was Jamaican and had been visiting family, according to the Florida Immigrant Coalition, an advocacy group. “My mother-in-law came to visit me last week,” the woman’s daughter-in-law told the coalition. “She’s my daughter’s grandmother and this was the first time meeting each other. I dropped her off at the Greyhound bus stop Friday morning and never got word of her arrival. I’m very concerned about these officers questioning her without a lawyer present.” Greyhound said it’s investigating the incident, and said it’s at the mercy of law enforcement agencies. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution protects people from arbitrary stops and searches, but federal law allows this to be overlooked in areas within 100 miles of U.S. borders. Florida lies entirely within that scope, reports the Huff Post.

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