EL PASO, Texas (KTEP) - On his first day in office, President Trump rescinded a longtime policy that limited immigration enforcement at hospitals, churches, schools and other “sensitive locations.”
The policy stems back to the early 1990s when a group of students and staff at Bowie High School sued the Border Patrol over allegations of racial profiling and won.
Decades later that hard-fought legal battle is in doubt as the Trump administration carries out a plan for mass deportations that includes using appearance or language to target suspects.
It brings back painful memories for Ernesto Muñoz, one of the Bowie High School students involved in the lawsuit. Border Patrol agents routinely stopped students near campus. “They would say things like ‘you match the description of someone we just witnessed crossing illegally and that is why we are stopping you,” Muñoz said.
The school sits on 60 acres less than a mile from the U.S. Mexico border in South Central El Paso.
“It wasn’t out of the ordinary to have Border Patrol vehicles come up from out of nowhere and drive up onto the curb,” Munoz said.
He and many students who lived in the area walked to school. More than 80 percent of El Paso residents are Mexican-American. “Agents would step out of the vehicle, round us up and have us stand against the vehicles. And, we would have our backpacks emptied out,” Muñoz said.
It happened so frequently in 1992 seven students and members of the faculty sued the Border Patrol over the alleged illegal stops, searches and arrests.
“A parade of witnesses, students, teachers, the coach, the principal's secretary, all these people that described what had been done to them,” said Albert Armendariz Jr. is one of the attorneys representing the Bowie students and staff members.
Among the incidents: in the Spring of 1992, agents stopped four students on the way to school and took them to an immigration detention center. All were U.S. citizens or legal residents.
In October 1991, Border Patrol agents questioned the principal’s secretary on the way home. She was also a U.S. citizen, Armendariz said.
“They made her get out of the car. They searched her car. They searched her truck. They interrogated her and, they had absolutely no reason to stop her.That is completely unlawful,” he said.
In November of 1991, a Border Patrol agent stopped Bowie football coach Benjamin Murillo and during questioning…pulled a gun on him.
“The funny thing is, we used to get along with agents,” Coach Benjamin Murillo testified according to an El Paso Times article. “In the past two years, we’ve become the enemy.” Murillo became a lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.
The Border Patrol Chief at the time, Dale Musegades also testified and denied any wrongdoing by agents patrolling the area near the campus.
Federal judge Lucius Bunton granted the Bowie students and staff an injunction in October 1992, ruling immigration enforcement does not override the rights of U.S. citizens and permanent residents. In his order, Judge Bunton required Border Patrol agents to have reasonable suspicion and not rely on race or appearance alone to stop a suspect.
The settlement agreement included training for Border Patrol agents about constitutional rights. Munoz and other students were relieved.
“Border Patrol was still very present in our lives but we, you know, I guess now had a safe zone there in there our school.”
That all changed this year when President Trump administration lifted the sensitive locations policy observed by both Republican and Democratic administrations for decades.
Under President Bill Cinton, immigration authorities were to avoid, in most cases, enforcement activities on school campuses, places of worship, funerals and medical facilities. During the George W. Bush’s administration, ICE observed a similar policy with agents encouraged to use “common sense and good judgement.”
In 2011, the Obama administration expanded the sensitive locations policy to include weddings, religious ceremonies and public demonstrations.
The first Trump administration followed those same guidelines as did the Biden administration.
But in January, the Department of Homeland Security issued a directive rescinding the policy.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a January statement from DHS said. “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
In September in a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court’s order that blocked immigration authorities from stopping and questioning people based on race, ethnicity, language or occupation during searches in Los Angeles.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote “we should not have to live in a country where the government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish and appears to work a low wage job.”
The emergency order is not a final ruling on the constitutionality of the practices. The underlying case is still proceeding in the lower courts.
That familiar feeling from his high school days is back as Muñoz anxiously watches videos shared on social media of Border Patrol and ICE agents stopping people near schools across the country.
He’s now worried about being racially profiled at Home Depot and other places where agents are targeting people.
“As a family we decided to apply for our passports,” he said. Even though I am an American citizen…I carry my passport with me everywhere I go.”
