Havre, Montana:

A Montana woman said she plans to take legal action after a Border Patrol agent detained and questioned her and a friend — both U.S. citizens — when he overheard them speaking Spanish at a gas station.

RTWT and count the infuriating things. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

• • The idea that speaking Spanish is probable cause for a stop. Whether it was the goon’s actual reasoning or an unusually bad pretext doesn’t matter.
  • The whole concept of the 100-mile “border zone” in which these goons can harass people. As a New Englander (who realizes how much of New England is within 100 miles of Canada and/or the Atlantic coast) I get freshly annoyed every time I’m reminded of this.
  • It’s Havre, Montana. The nearest border with a Spanish-speaking country is 1,400-odd miles away. You’d think the goon would be more freaked out by Francophones, but then again, police culture is national.
  • The government — which apparently told local media “we have the right to do this sort of thing at our discretion” before national media picked it up — is now “reviewing the incident to ensure all appropriate policies were followed.” Results matter, not policies, and the result was a goon detaining two women in a gas station parking lot at midnight.
  • “U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents and officers are committed to treating everyone with professionalism, dignity and respect while enforcing the laws of the United States,” the agency lied.
  • The woman talking to the Washington Post plans to contact the ACLU with an eye toward suing the federal government, the best possible outcome of which would be making the government pretend to jump through a few more hoops before treating random innocent people the exact same way.

Originally posted on May 21, 2018.