Retired lawyer Eleanor Hoague says she didn’t intend to be involved in citizens’ rights crusades when she moved to Orcas Island.

But, she says, “somebody had to do something” when the Border Patrols, under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, began questioning ferry passengers on the ferry runs from the San Juan Islands in the State of Washington to Anacortes, also in the State of Washington.

So last month, Hoague had installed on the San Juan Island route State Ferries a two-page brochure, in Spanish and English, informing citizens, including immigrants, of their rights at checkpoints at ferry terminals.

Hoague conferred with the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington Foundation and then had the brochures printed and placed in the ferries’ brochure racks. The brochures were examined by the state ferries’ legal department.

The brochure contains seven bullet points to guide ferry travelers about responses to questions from agents of the Customs and Border Protection Agency, such as:

• U.S. citizens are not required to carry documents proving their citizenship, unless they are leaving the United States

• Non-citizens age 18 or older are required to carry their immigration documents at all times. A non-citizen can be arrested for failure to show the documents at the request of a Customs agent.

• No one, citizen or non-citizen, is obliged to answer questions by Customs and Border Patrol agents. It is not a crime to remain silent; however it may cause a delay in your travel.

“The real basis of all of this is the right of a person to have representation and to find out what their legal rights are,” said Hoague. She talks of a friend, a U.S. naturalized citizen and an immigrant, who was detained and compelled to show her citizenship documentation when travelling from Friday Harbor to Anacortes.

Hoague says that she experienced the feeling that many islanders have expressed, that by answering the Border Patrol questions, she is complicit in the erosion of citizens’ civil rights. She herself refused to answer questions asked by a Border Patrol agent recently. However, after claiming her rights and announcing that she was a retired attorney, she was not further detained. “There has to be some basis for detaining people, or to ask consent to check vehicle license plates. I’m not going to answer unless [Border Patrol] has a reason to detain me, and refusing to answer is not a reason to detain me.”

Hoague adds that the Border Patrol has the right to detain people at their “discretion;” however, “being white and well-educated is not the basis on which a distinction should be made.”

She adds “By refusing to answer, you may be buying trouble, and you should always be polite.”

She tells of one island resident who continually asked to speak to a lawyer before answering any questions, who was detained, but who kept his composure and was ultimately released.

“It’s a very limited response, because the pressure is on you; it’s very difficult to maintain your composure.”

Hoague says that she is in touch with lawyers and community leaders in Arizona who have successfully organized to get reasonable immigration reform and to stop the checkpoints. While working to change the law, “no one says you have to be quiet in the meantime,” says Hoague. “At what point do we say, ‘This is too much of an intrusion’?”

Prior to her retirement, Hoague had been involved in immigration law, which was rewritten in 1996. “Everyone came to this country as an immigrant, except for Native Americans,” she says. “But the law was different in the past, and as a matter of fact, many times, our forebears didn’t come in so legally, either.

“There’s a huge tendency to say, ‘Now that we’re here, it’s time to close the door.’ If immigrants could come here under contract to work, then all of a sudden, all of these people would be legal.”

Immigrants have no right to legal representation at court hearings and they can be sent anywhere in the U.S., and even be held permanently, if they can’t be deported to their native country.

Hoague, who grew up in Seattle, worked as a teenager for the American Friends Service Committee in Mexico. After earning her lawyer’s credentials, she worked in immigration law, then several years as a business lawyer for a truck manufacturer. Later she moved to Argentina on a Fullbright Scholarship, and stayed there for four years, writing an English-Spanish legal dictionary. Upon her return to the U.S., she practiced domestic law.

Hoague lives on Orcas Island half-time. She says, “I didn’t come up here to do this kind of thing, but it has to be done by somebody. Otherwise, if we all just go along, slowly our rights are eroded.”

Hoague’s efforts to place the pamphlets on the ferry were assisted by David Schermerhorn of Deer Harbor. Those interested in supporting their efforts can call Hoague at 376-7101.