This is the stuff dystopian movies are made of. This video, put out by the ACLU, shows immigration agents asking passengers waiting to board a privately owned Concord Coach if they are a US citizen. Even though, according to the ACLU, there is no law anywhere in the country that bars non-US citizens from riding a bus in the United States, a Concord Coach employee answers “Yep” when an incredulous passenger asks if only US citizens can ride their bus. The passengers in this video know their rights and refuse to answer the question.
According to The Root:
In an interview with New Hampshire Public Radio, Concord Coach Lines Vice President Ben Blunt said the employee misspoke. Blunt said the company had not done a good enough job “talking about this issue with our staff,” before adding, “We don’t want to ask our employees—our drivers, our ticket agents—to be interfering with a federal officer who is lawfully doing his job.”
But Blunt’s answer glossed over one simple distinction that needs to be made: There’s a difference between interfering with a government authority and spreading misinformation on behalf of that authority.