VIDEO: Two women DETAINED for speaking Spanish in Montana

Apparently there are so few Hispanics in Montana that when this border patrol agent heard these two women conversing in Spanish as they were buying eggs and milk, that he decided to detain them for the better part of an hour while he checked out their identities:

NBC NEWS – Video taken by a Montana woman as she and her friend were questioned and detained by a U.S. Border Patrol agent after he overheard them speaking Spanish at a gas station has caught the attention of border patrol officials and civil liberties groups.

Ana Suda and Mimi Hernandez — both U.S. citizens — were chatting in Spanish as they went to buy eggs and milk around midnight Wednesday in Havre, a small town about 35 miles from the Canadian border. Suda said that’s when a border patrol agent overheard them.

“He asked us where we were born, so I looked at him and I said, ‘Are you serious?'” Suda told NBC News on Monday. “He said, ‘I’m very serious.'”

The agent then asked Suda and Hernandez for their identification, she added.

They went outside to the parking lot, and Suda began to record on her cellphone.

In the video, Suda asked the agent why he was asking for their IDs.

“Ma’am, the reason I asked you for your ID is because I came in here, and I saw that you guys are speaking Spanish, which is very unheard of up here,” the agent, who identified himself as Agent O’Neill, said in the video.

When Suda, 37, asked if she and her friend were being racially profiled, the agent responded no.

“It has nothing to do with that,” he said. “It’s the fact that it has to do with you guys speaking Spanish in the store, in a state where it’s predominantly English-speaking.”

Suda said she began recording because she was uncomfortable and afraid.

“I picked up my phone and started recording him because I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she said, adding, “That is the only way you can defend yourself.”

She said the agent took their IDs and kept them in the parking lot for about 35 to 40 minutes.

“He didn’t say anything when he gave me back the documentation. He said something like ‘Thank you, you are free to go,'” Suda said.

Here’s the video of the Border Patrol officer explaining why he stopped them:

The Border Patrol has responded to the incident:

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said in a statement that the incident was being reviewed to make sure appropriate policies were followed. Agents have broader authority when operating within 100 miles of a U.S. border, such as operating checkpoints and questioning people in their vehicles about their citizenship, but CBP policy also says agents cannot stop or detain someone solely on their race or ethnicity.

Agents and officers “are committed to treating everyone with professionalism, dignity and respect while enforcing the laws of the United States,” the spokesperson said. “Although most Border Patrol work is conducted in the immediate border area, agents have broad law enforcement authorities and are not limited to a specific geography within the United States.”

Agents have the “authority to question individuals, make arrests, and take and consider evidence,” the spokesperson added. “Decisions to question individuals are based on a variety of factors for which Border Patrol agents are well-trained.”

It’s true they weren’t far from the Canadian border – roughly 30 miles – so perhaps that played a part in the officer’s thinking. Still, it seems like an overreach that they were detained simply because they were speaking Spanish.

The good thing is it didn’t escalate into something worse. It sounds like these ladies handled themselves very well despite the inconvenience of being stopped because they were speaking Spanish.


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