Border Agents Make Amtrak Riders Prove They’re Citizens

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Corey El was on an Amtrak train from Penn Station to Niagara Falls last Thursday when he says a Border Patrol officer approached his seat.

“He asked me, ‘Are you an American citizen?’” he said. “I scoffed at him and said, ‘Yeah.’”

El quickly got out his phone and took a video of U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers questioning another Amtrak customer, which has since gone viral, receiving over 6,800 retweets.

The train was stopped in Syracuse, about 160 miles away from El’s destination, for about 20 minutes, he said. El remembers the officers asking two other riders for their citizenship status, and none of them were white. One passenger, who he said was “possibly Middle Eastern,” produced a burgundy passport during questioning.

“I originally wanted to tell him off and to refuse to answer. I know it’s legal,” said El. “But I’m cognizant of the fact that I’m also black. As a person of color, there’s a foot on my neck. I know that I can’t.”

The viral encounter raises a pivotal civil rights question that Amtrak wouldn’t clarify in several interactions with The Daily Beast.

Are Amtrak customers now required to bring with them proof of American citizenship, or else face being ejected from a train hundreds of miles away from their destination?