The American Civil Liberties Union has recently been publicizing the existence of a "Constitution-free zone," extending 100 miles from all US borders, within which the Department of Homeland Security claims the right to search and detain individuals without the "reasonable cause" required by the Fourth Amendment.
CNN's Lou Dobbs, known as an aggressive campaigner against illegal immigration, was predictably outraged by the ACLU campaign. Under a graphic reading "ACLU amnesty agenda," he sneered, "The American Civil Liberties Union claims the Department of Homeland Security's efforts to enforce immigration laws are 'unconstitutional.' In point of fact, it is the ACLU actively trying to block enforcement of this nation's laws. Is that constitutional?"
Correspondent Casey Wian briefly reviewed the issue for Dobbs, noting that the ACLU hopes to reduce the Border Patrol's power of warrantless searches through lawsuits or legislation
The Supreme Court ruled decades ago that the Border Patrol has a right to stop and briefly question drivers at checkpoints near the border, even without having a "reasonable suspicion" of any particular car, in the effort to intercept drug smugglers or illegal aliens.
However, the number of people complaining to the ACLU about Border Patrol harassment has leaped since the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and checkpoints have been observed as far as 93 miles from any border.
"What is the point of what they're suggesting?" Dobbs asked. "They want the borders wide open. They want amnesty for illegal aliens. And they want the drug war to continue to be decided in favor of the drug traffickers."
"There is no legal recourse for an American citizen against the ACLU, is there?" Dobbs concluded, laughing. "Isn't that unconstitutional?"
Dobbs' extremist views on the subject of immigration have been an issue for many years. FAIR has noted that "Dobbs' tone on immigration is consistently alarmist; he warns his viewers of Mexican immigrants who see themselves as an 'army of invaders' intent upon reannexing parts of the Southwestern U.S. to Mexico, announces that 'illegal alien smugglers and drug traffickers are on the verge of ruining some of our national treasures,' and declares that 'the invasion of illegal aliens is threatening the health of many Americans' through 'deadly imports' of diseases like leprosy and malaria."
In 2006, when a immigration bill sponsored by Senators John McCain and Edward Kennedy was under consideration, Dobbs complained falsely that the bill would do "absolutely nothing for border security." Later in the same broadcast, according to Media Matters, "CNN correspondent Casey Wian characterized Mexican President Vicente Fox's trip to Salt Lake City, Utah, as a 'Mexican military incursion,' and claimed that '[y]ou could call' Fox's trip to the United States 'the Vicente Fox Aztlan tour' -- drawing a baseless link between Fox and the reconquista movement, which maintains that portions of the American Southwest (territory referred to by supporters of the theory as 'Aztlan') belong to Mexico. During Wian's report, CNN featured a graphic of "Aztlan" that was sourced to the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) -- an organization linked to white supremacists."
This video is from CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, broadcast October 22, 2008.
The American Civil Liberties Union has recently been 