Greyhound Prohibits Selling Tickets to Undocumented Immigrants
Vida en el Valle, News Report, Staff, Posted: Sep 29, 2005
Traducción al español
Greyhound Lines Inc., the country's largest intercity bus company, has come under fire from immigrant groups for threatening to fire employees who sell bus tickets to undocumented immigrants.
The 'Transportation of Illegal Aliens' policy warns Greyhound's employees to beware of people in large groups, moving in single file and traveling with little or no luggage. It says other telltale signs include people "trying to hide or stay out of plain view" or large groups led by a "guide" who holds everyone's tickets.
Greyhound also says immigrant smugglers give themselves away by calling bus stations to ask if immigration authorities are present, and by loitering, repeatedly buying large numbers of tickets for other people and using phrases like, "These guys just crossed the line," "my cargo," and "I've got to move my people."
The policy warns that failure to comply could result in the employee's firing and possibly arrest.
The identification of undocumented immigrants, said Arnoldo García of the Oakland-based National Network of Immigrant and Refugee Rights, should be left to federal officials and not to the bus company's workers.
"It puts Greyhound in a position of authority they don't have any formal training in," García told Vida en el Valle. "It's an issue for the INS, not Greyhound. It's a real danger. It's going to cause anti-immigrant fears."
Immigrants Without Borders, a Phoenix-based advocacy group, is encouraging passengers not to buy tickets on Greyhound or its two subsidiary lines, Crucero USA and Autobuses Americanos.
"We are protesting the fact that they are doing racial profiling," Elias Bermúdez of Immigrants Without Borders told The Arizona Republic.
García said the pamphlet, which became public after La Opinión published a story about it in on Sept. 1, raises more questions than answers.
"It makes employees look for 'illegal' status based on appearances. It's racial profiling," said García.
Kimberly Plaskett, a Greyhound spokeswoman, said she didn't know how many customers have been denied tickets under the policy but called it a "pretty rare" occurrence. The Dallas-based company adopted the policy in 2002 in response to the criminal indictment of a now-defunct, California bus company that pleaded guilty to immigrant smuggling, she said.
Two migrant advocacy groups held a conference call with Greyhound attorneys on Sept. 9 to urge the company to reconsider its position, saying it invites discrimination against Hispanics.
"When the standard is that you should know who is in the U.S. illegally, it is a recipe for singling out Latinos," said Cecilia Muñoz of the National Council of La Raza in Washington, D.C., who participated in the call. "You're not going to go after the Irish-looking guy."
John Trasvina of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund in Los Angeles, who also joined the call, took issue with Greyhound's requirement that employees deny tickets to "anyone you know or believe to be an illegal alien."
"On what basis does someone know it or believe to know that?" Trasvina said. "There's a great risk that the employee will go overboard."
Large groups of Latino passengers are more likely to be targeted than a Japanese or German tour group, he said.
Greyhound notes that while the policy prohibits profiling based on "race, national heritage, gender, age, religion, disability, etc.," federal law also makes it a crime to knowingly transport an illegal immigrant.
"We have to comply with federal law or we face pretty severe consequences -- criminal indictments, seizure of assets," she said.
The policy was adopted in response to the 2001 indictment of Golden State Transportation Co. of Los Angeles on immigrant smuggling charges. The company later filed for bankruptcy and it pleaded guilty last year to transporting an estimated 42,100 illegal immigrants from Tucson, Ariz., to Los Angeles, using a roundabout route through Las Vegas to avoid Border Patrol checkpoints. The company paid a $3 million fine and forfeited a downtown Phoenix terminal.
According to the indictment, buses typically left border cities after midnight to escape detection. Passengers appeared dirty, had no luggage, hid in the bushes near terminals and boarded buses at the last minute, prosecutors said.
"It wasn't one criteria, but you put them all together and it was obvious that these people were not in the country legally," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Wallace H. Kleinstedt, who prosecuted the case.
Greyhound carried 21.2 million passengers last year to more than 2,200 destinations. It has a fleet of 2,700 buses and 9,700 employees.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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