United States v. Montoya De Hernandez
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Full Opinion
UNITED STATES
v.
MONTOYA DE HERNANDEZ
Supreme Court of United States.
*532 Deputy Solicitor General Frey argued the cause for the United States. With him on the briefs were Solicitor General Lee, Assistant Attorney General Trott, and John F. De Pue.
Peter M. Horstman, by appointment of the Court, 469 U. S. 1204, argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief was Janet I. Levine.
JUSTICE REHNQUIST delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Rosa Elvira Montoya de Hernandez was detained by customs officials upon her arrival at the Los Angeles Airport on a flight from Bogota, Colombia. She was found to be smuggling 88 cocaine-filled balloons in her alimentary *533 canal, and was convicted after a bench trial of various federal narcotics offenses. A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed her convictions, holding that her detention violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution because the customs inspectors did not have a "clear indication" of alimentary canal smuggling at the time she was detained. 731 F. 2d 1369 (1984). Because of a conflict in the decisions of the Courts of Appeals on this question and the importance of its resolution to the enforcement of customs laws, we granted certiorari. 469 U. S. 1188. We now reverse.
Respondent arrived at Los Angeles International Airport shortly after midnight, March 5, 1983, on Avianca Flight 080, a direct 10-hour flight from Bogota, Colombia. Her visa was in order so she was passed through Immigration and proceeded to the customs desk. At the customs desk she encountered Customs Inspector Talamantes, who reviewed her documents and noticed from her passport that she had made at least eight recent trips to either Miami or Los Angeles. Talamantes referred respondent to a secondary customs desk for further questioning. At this desk Talamantes and another inspector asked respondent general questions concerning herself and the purpose of her trip. Respondent revealed that she spoke no English and had no family or friends in the United States. She explained in Spanish that she had come to the United States to purchase goods for her husband's store in Bogota. The customs inspectors recognized Bogota as a "source city" for narcotics. Respondent possessed $5,000 in cash, mostly $50 bills, but had no billfold. She indicated to the inspectors that she had no appointments with merchandise vendors, but planned to ride around Los Angeles in taxicabs visiting retail stores such as J. C. Penney and K-Mart in order to buy goods for her husband's store with the $5,000.
Respondent admitted that she had no hotel reservations, but stated that she planned to stay at a Holiday Inn. Respondent could not recall how her airline ticket was purchased. *534 When the inspectors opened respondent's one small valise they found about four changes of "cold weather" clothing. Respondent had no shoes other than the high-heeled pair she was wearing. Although respondent possessed no checks, waybills, credit cards, or letters of credit, she did produce a Colombian business card and a number of old receipts, waybills, and fabric swatches displayed in a photo album.
At this point Talamantes and the other inspector suspected that respondent was a "balloon swallower," one who attempts to smuggle narcotics into this country hidden in her alimentary canal. Over the years Inspector Talamantes had apprehended dozens of alimentary canal smugglers arriving on Avianca Flight 080. See App. 42; United States v. Mendez-Jimenez, 709 F. 2d 1300, 1301 (CA9 1983).
The inspectors requested a female customs inspector to take respondent to a private area and conduct a patdown and strip search. During the search the female inspector felt respondent's abdomen area and noticed a firm fullness, as if respondent were wearing a girdle. The search revealed no contraband, but the inspector noticed that respondent was wearing two pairs of elastic underpants with a paper towel lining the crotch area.
When respondent returned to the customs area and the female inspector reported her discoveries, the inspector in charge told respondent that he suspected she was smuggling drugs in her alimentary canal. Respondent agreed to the inspector's request that she be x-rayed at a hospital but in answer to the inspector's query stated that she was pregnant. She agreed to a pregnancy test before the x ray. Respondent withdrew the consent for an x ray when she learned that she would have to be handcuffed en route to the hospital. The inspector then gave respondent the option of returning to Colombia on the next available flight, agreeing to an x ray, or remaining in detention until she produced a monitored bowel movement that would confirm or rebut the inspectors' *535 suspicions. Respondent chose the first option and was placed in a customs office under observation. She was told that if she went to the toilet she would have to use a waste-basket in the women's restroom, in order that female customs inspectors could inspect her stool for balloons or capsules carrying narcotics. The inspectors refused respondent's request to place a telephone call.
Respondent sat in the customs office, under observation, for the remainder of the night. During the night customs officials attempted to place respondent on a Mexican airline that was flying to Bogota via Mexico City in the morning. The airline refused to transport respondent because she lacked a Mexican visa necessary to land in Mexico City. Respondent was not permitted to leave, and was informed that she would be detained until she agreed to an x ray or her bowels moved. She remained detained in the customs office under observation, for most of the time curled up in a chair leaning to one side. She refused all offers of food and drink, and refused to use the toilet facilities. The Court of Appeals noted that she exhibited symptoms of discomfort consistent with "heroic efforts to resist the usual calls of nature." 731 F. 2d, at 1371.
At the shift change at 4:00 o'clock the next afternoon, almost 16 hours after her flight had landed, respondent still had not defecated or urinated or partaken of food or drink. At that time customs officials sought a court order authorizing a pregnancy test, an x ray, and a rectal examination. The Federal Magistrate issued an order just before midnight that evening, which authorized a rectal examination and involuntary x ray, provided that the physician in charge considered respondent's claim of pregnancy. Respondent was taken to a hospital and given a pregnancy test, which later turned out to be negative. Before the results of the pregnancy test were known, a physician conducted a rectal examination and removed from respondent's rectum a balloon containing a foreign substance. Respondent was then placed *536 formally under arrest. By 4:10 a. m. respondent had passed 6 similar balloons; over the next four days she passed 88 balloons containing a total of 528 grams of 80% pure cocaine hydrochloride.
After a suppression hearing the District Court admitted the cocaine in evidence against respondent. She was convicted of possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, 21 U. S. C. ยง 841(a)(1), and unlawful importation of cocaine, 21 U. S. C. ยงยง 952(a), 960(a).
A divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed respondent's convictions. The court noted that customs inspectors had a "justifiably high level of official skepticism" about respondent's good motives, but the inspectors decided to let nature take its course rather than seek an immediate magistrate's warrant for an x ray. 731 F. 2d, at 1372. Such a magistrate's warrant required a "clear indication" or "plain suggestion" that the traveler was an alimentary canal smuggler under previous decisions of the Court of Appeals. See United States v. Quintero-Castro, 705 F. 2d 1099 (CA9 1983); United States v. Mendez-Jimenez, 709 F. 2d 1300, 1302 (CA9 1983); but cf. South Dakota v. Opperman, 428 U. S. 364, 370, n. 5 (1976). The court applied this required level of suspicion to respondent's case. The court questioned the "humanity" of the inspectors' decision to hold respondent until her bowels moved, knowing that she would suffer "many hours of humiliating discomfort" if she chose not to submit to the x-ray examination. The court concluded that under a "clear indication" standard "the evidence available to the customs officers when they decided to hold [respondent] for continued observation was insufficient to support the 16-hour detention." 731 F. 2d, at 1373.
The Government contends that the customs inspectors reasonably suspected that respondent was an alimentary canal smuggler, and this suspicion was sufficient to justify the detention. In support of the judgment below respondent *537 argues, inter alia, that reasonable suspicion would not support respondent's detention, and in any event the inspectors did not reasonably suspect that respondent was carrying narcotics internally.
The Fourth Amendment commands that searches and seizures be reasonable. What is reasonable depends upon all of the circumstances surrounding the search or seizure and the nature of the search or seizure itself. New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 337-342 (1985). The permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by "balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests." United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 462 U. S. 579, 588 (1983); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 654 (1979); Camara v. Municipal Court, 387 U. S. 523 (1967).
Here the seizure of respondent took place at the international border. Since the founding of our Republic, Congress has granted the Executive plenary authority to conduct routine searches and seizures at the border, without probable cause or a warrant, in order to regulate the collection of duties and to prevent the introduction of contraband into this country. See United States v. Ramsey, 431 U. S. 606, 616-617 (1977), citing Act of July 31, 1789, ch. 5, 1 Stat. 29. This Court has long recognized Congress' power to police entrants at the border. See Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 623 (1886). As we stated recently:
" `Import restrictions and searches of persons or packages at the national border rest on different considerations and different rules of constitutional law from domestic regulations. The Constitution gives Congress broad comprehensive powers "[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations," Art. I, ยง 8, cl. 3. Historically such broad powers have been necessary to prevent smuggling and to prevent prohibited articles from *538 entry.' " Ramsey, supra, at 618-619, quoting United States v. 12 200-Ft. Reels of Film, 413 U. S. 123, 125 (1973).
Consistently, therefore, with Congress' power to protect the Nation by stopping and examining persons entering this country, the Fourth Amendment's balance of reasonableness is qualitatively different at the international border than in the interior. Routine searches of the persons and effects of entrants are not subject to any requirement of reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or warrant,[1] and first-class mail may be opened without a warrant on less than probable cause, Ramsey, supra. Automotive travelers may be stopped at fixed checkpoints near the border without individualized suspicion even if the stop is based largely on ethnicity, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U. S. 543, 562-563 (1976), and boats on inland waters with ready access to the sea may be hailed and boarded with no suspicion whatever. United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, supra.
These cases reflect longstanding concern for the protection of the integrity of the border. This concern is, if anything, heightened by the veritable national crisis in law enforcement caused by smuggling of illicit narcotics, see United States v. Mendenhall, 446 U. S. 544, 561 (1980) (POWELL, J., concurring), and in particular by the increasing utilization of alimentary canal smuggling. This desperate practice appears to be a relatively recent addition to the smugglers' repertoire of deceptive practices, and it also appears to be exceedingly difficult *539 to detect.[2] Congress had recognized these difficulties. Title 19 U. S. C. ยง 1582 provides that "all persons coming into the United States from foreign countries shall be liable to detention and search authorized . . . [by customs regulations]." Customs agents may "stop, search, and examine" any "vehicle, beast or person" upon which an officer suspects there is contraband or "merchandise which is subject to duty." ยง 482; see also ยงยง 1467, 1481; 19 CFR ยงยง 162.6, 162.7 (1984).
Balanced against the sovereign's interests at the border are the Fourth Amendment rights of respondent. Having presented herself at the border for admission, and having subjected herself to the criminal enforcement powers of the Federal Government, 19 U. S. C. ยง 482, respondent was entitled to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. But not only is the expectation of privacy less at the border than in the interior, see e. g., Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. *540 132, 154 (1925); cf. Florida v. Royer, 460 U. S. 491, 515 (1983) (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting), the Fourth Amendment balance between the interests of the Government and the privacy right of the individual is also struck much more favorably to the Government at the border. Supra, at 538.
We have not previously decided what level of suspicion would justify a seizure of an incoming traveler for purposes other than a routine border search. Cf. Ramsey, 431 U. S., at 618, n. 13. The Court of Appeals held that the initial detention of respondent was permissible only if the inspectors possessed a "clear indication" of alimentary canal smuggling. 731 F. 2d, at 1372, citing United States v. Quintero-Castro, 705 F. 2d 1099 (CA9 1983); cf. United States v. Mendez-Jimenez, 709 F. 2d 1300 (CA9 1983). This "clear indication" language comes from our opinion in Schmerber v. California, 384 U. S. 757 (1966), but we think that the Court of Appeals misapprehended the significance of that phrase in the context in which it was used in Schmerber.[3] The Court of Appeals viewed "clear indication" as an intermediate standard between "reasonable suspicion" and "probable cause." See Mendez-Jimenez, supra, at 1302. But we think that the words in Schmerber were used to indicate the necessity for particularized suspicion that the evidence sought might be found within the body of the individual, rather than as enunciating still a third Fourth Amendment threshold between "reasonable suspicion" and "probable cause."
No other court, including this one, has ever adopted Schmerber's "clear indication" language as a Fourth Amendment standard. See, e. g., Winston v. Lee, 470 U. S. 753, *541 759-763 (1985) (surgical removal of bullet for evidence). Indeed, another Court of Appeals, faced with facts almost identical to this case, has adopted a less strict standard based upon reasonable suspicion. See United States v. Mosquera-Ramirez, 729 F. 2d 1352, 1355 (CA11 1984). We do not think that the Fourth Amendment's emphasis upon reasonableness is consistent with the creation of a third verbal standard in addition to "reasonable suspicion" and "probable cause"; we are dealing with a constitutional requirement of reasonableness, not mens rea, see United States v. Bailey, 444 U. S. 394, 403-406 (1980), and subtle verbal gradations may obscure rather than elucidate the meaning of the provision in question.
We hold that the detention of a traveler at the border, beyond the scope of a routine customs search and inspection, is justified at its inception if customs agents, considering all the facts surrounding the traveler and her trip, reasonably suspect that the traveler is smuggling contraband in her alimentary canal.[4]
The "reasonable suspicion" standard has been applied in a number of contexts and effects a needed balance between private and public interests when law enforcement officials must make a limited intrusion on less than probable cause. It thus fits well into the situations involving alimentary canal smuggling at the border: this type of smuggling gives no external signs and inspectors will rarely possess probable cause to arrest or search, yet governmental interests in stopping smuggling at the border are high indeed. Under this standard officials at the border must have a "particularized and objective basis for suspecting the particular person" of alimentary *542 canal smuggling. United States v. Cortez, 449 U. S. 411, 417 (1981); id., at 418, citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 21, n. 18 (1968).
The facts, and their rational inferences, known to customs inspectors in this case clearly supported a reasonable suspicion that respondent was an alimentary canal smuggler. We need not belabor the facts, including respondent's implausible story, that supported this suspicion, see supra, at 533-536. The trained customs inspectors had encountered many alimentary canal smugglers and certainly had more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or `hunch,' " Terry, supra, at 27, that respondent was smuggling narcotics in her alimentary canal. The inspectors' suspicion was a " `common-sense conclusio[n] about human behavior' upon which `practical people,' ย including government officials, are entitled to rely." T. L. O., 469 U. S., at 346, citing United States v. Cortez, supra.
The final issue in this case is whether the detention of respondent was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified it initially. In this regard we have cautioned that courts should not indulge in "unrealistic second-guessing," United States v. Sharpe, 470 U. S. 675, 686 (1985), and we have noted that "creative judge[s], engaged in post hoc evaluations of police conduct can almost always imagine some alternative means by which the objectives of the police might have been accomplished." Id., at 686-687. But "[t]he fact that the protection of the public might, in the abstract, have been accomplished by `less intrusive' means does not, in itself, render the search unreasonable." Id., at 687, citing Cady v. Dombrowski, 413 U. S. 433, 447 (1973). Authorities must be allowed "to graduate their response to the demands of any particular situation." United States v. Place, 462 U. S. 696, 709, n. 10 (1983). Here, respondent was detained incommunicado for almost 16 hours before inspectors sought a warrant; the warrant then took a number of hours to procure, through no apparent fault *543 of the inspectors. This length of time undoubtedly exceeds any other detention we have approved under reasonable suspicion. But we have also consistently rejected hard-and-fast time limits, Sharpe, supra; Place, supra, at 709, n. 10. Instead, "common sense and ordinary human experience must govern over rigid criteria." Sharpe, supra, at 685.
The rudimentary knowledge of the human body which judges possess in common with the rest of humankind tells us that alimentary canal smuggling cannot be detected in the amount of time in which other illegal activity may be investigated through brief Terry-type stops. It presents few, if any external signs; a quick frisk will not do, nor will even a strip search. In the case of respondent the inspectors had available, as an alternative to simply awaiting her bowel movement, an x ray. They offered her the alternative of submitting herself to that procedure. But when she refused that alternative, the customs inspectors were left with only two practical alternatives: detain her for such time as necessary to confirm their suspicions, a detention which would last much longer than the typical Terry stop, or turn her loose into the interior carrying the reasonably suspected contraband drugs.
The inspectors in this case followed this former procedure. They no doubt expected that respondent, having recently disembarked from a 10-hour direct flight with a full and stiff abdomen, would produce a bowel movement without extended delay. But her visible efforts to resist the call of nature, which the court below labeled "heroic," disappointed this expectation and in turn caused her humiliation and discomfort. Our prior cases have refused to charge police with delays in investigatory detention attributable to the suspect's evasive actions, see Sharpe, 470 U. S., at 687-688; id., at 697 (MARSHALL, J., concurring in judgment), and that principle applies here as well. Respondent alone was responsible for much of the duration and discomfort of the seizure.
*544 Under these circumstances, we conclude that the detention in this case was not unreasonably long. It occurred at the international border, where the Fourth Amendment balance of interests leans heavily to the Government. At the border, customs officials have more than merely an investigative law enforcement role. They are also charged, along with immigration officials, with protecting this Nation from entrants who may bring anything harmful into this country, whether that be communicable diseases, narcotics, or explosives. See 8 U. S. C. ยงยง 1182(a)(23), 1182(a)(6), 1222; 19 CFR ยงยง 162.4-162.7 (1984). See also 19 U. S. C. ยง 482; 8 U. S. C. ยง 1103(a). In this regard the detention of a suspected alimentary canal smuggler at the border is analogous to the detention of a suspected tuberculosis carrier at the border: both are detained until their bodily processes dispel the suspicion that they will introduce a harmful agent into this country. Cf. 8 U. S. C. ยง 1222; 42 CFR pt. 34 (1984); 19 U. S. C. ยงยง 482, 1582.
Respondent's detention was long, uncomfortable, indeed, humiliating; but both its length and its discomfort resulted solely from the method by which she chose to smuggle illicit drugs into this country. In Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143 (1972), another Terry-stop case, we said that "[t]he Fourth Amendment does not require a policeman who lacks the precise level of information necessary for probable cause to arrest to simply shrug his shoulders and allow a crime to occur or a criminal to escape." Id., at 145. Here, by analogy, in the presence of articulable suspicion of smuggling in her alimentary canal, the customs officers were not required by the Fourth Amendment to pass respondent and her 88 cocaine-filled balloons into the interior. Her detention for the period of time necessary to either verify or dispel the suspicion was not unreasonable. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Reversed.
*545 JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in the judgment.
If a seizure and a search of the person of the kind disclosed by this record may be made on the basis of reasonable suspicion, we must assume that a significant number of innocent persons will be required to undergo similar procedures. The rule announced in this case cannot, therefore, be supported on the ground that respondent's prolonged and humiliating detention "resulted solely from the method by which she chose to smuggle illicit drugs into this country." Ante, at 544.
The prolonged detention of respondent was, however, justified by a different choice that respondent made; she withdrew her consent to an x-ray examination that would have easily determined whether the reasonable suspicion that she was concealing contraband was justified. I believe that customs agents may require that a nonpregnant person reasonably suspected of this kind of smuggling submit to an x-ray examination as an incident to a border search. I therefore concur in the judgment.
JUSTICE BRENNAN, with whom JUSTICE MARSHALL joins, dissenting.
We confront a "disgusting and saddening episode" at our Nation's border.[1] Shortly after midnight on March 5, 1983, the respondent Rosa Elvira Montoya de Hernandez was detained by customs officers because she fit the profile of an "alimentary canal smuggler."[2] This profile did not of course give the officers probable cause to believe that De Hernandez *546 was smuggling drugs into the country, but at most a "reasonable suspicion" that she might be engaged in such an attempt. After a thorough strip search failed to uncover any contraband, De Hernandez agreed to go to a local hospital for an abdominal x ray to resolve the matter. When the officers approached with handcuffs at the ready to lead her away, however, "she crossed her arms by her chest and began stepping backwards shaking her head negatively," protesting: "You are not going to put those on me. That is an insult to my character."[3]
Stymied in their efforts, the officers decided on an alternative course: they would simply lock De Hernandez away in an adjacent manifest room "until her peristaltic functions produced a monitored bowel movement."[4] The officers explained to De Hernandez that she could not leave until she had excreted by squatting over a wastebasket pursuant to the watchful eyes of two attending matrons. De Hernandez responded: "I will not submit to your degradation and I'd rather die."[5] She was locked away with the matrons.
De Hernandez remained locked up in the room for almost 24 hours. Three shifts of matrons came and went during this time. The room had no bed or couch on which she could lie, but only hard chairs and a table. The matrons told her that if she wished to sleep she could lie down on the hard, uncarpeted floor. De Hernandez instead "sat in her chair clutching her purse," "occasionally putting her head down on the table to nap."[6] Most of the time she simply wept and pleaded "to go home."[7] She repeatedly begged for permission "to call my husband and tell him what you are doing to *547 me."[8] Permission was denied. Sobbing, she insisted that she had to "make a phone call home so that she could talk to her children and to let them know that everything was all right."[9] Permission again was denied. In fact, the matrons considered it highly "unusual" that "each time someone entered the search room, she would take out two small pictures of her children and show them to the person."[10] De Hernandez also demanded that her attorney be contacted.[11] Once again, permission was denied. As far as the outside world knew, Rosa de Hernandez had simply vanished. And although she already had been stripped and searched and probed, the customs officers decided about halfway through her ordeal to repeat that process ย "to ensure the safety of the surveilling officers. The result was again negative."[12]
After almost 24 hours had passed, someone finally had the presence of mind to consult a Magistrate and to obtain a court order for an x ray and a body-cavity search.[13] De *548 Hernandez, "very agitated," was handcuffed and led away to the hospital.[14] A rectal examination disclosed the presence of a cocaine-filled balloon. At approximately 3:15 on the morning of March 6, almost 27 hours after her initial detention, De Hernandez was formally placed under arrest and advised of her Miranda rights. Over the course of the next four days she excreted a total of 88 balloons.
"[T]hat the [respondent] so degraded herself as to offend the sensibilities of any decent citizen is not questioned."[15] That is not the issue we face. For "[i]t is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have frequently been forged in controversies involving not very nice people." United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56, 69 (1950) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). The standards we fashion to govern the ferreting out of the guilty apply equally to the detention of the innocent, and "may be exercised by the most unfit and ruthless officers as well as by the fit and responsible." Brinegar v. United States, 338 U. S. 160, 182 (1949) (Jackson, J., dissenting).[16] Nor is the issue whether there is a "veritable *549 national crisis in law enforcement caused by smuggling of illicit narcotics." Ante, at 538. There is, and "[s]tern enforcement of the criminal law is the hallmark of a healthy and self-confident society." Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582, 615 (1946) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). "But in our democracy such enforcement presupposes a moral atmosphere and a reliance upon intelligence whereby the effective administration of justice can be achieved with due regard for those civilized standards in the use of the criminal law which are formulated in our Bill of Rights." Ibid.
The issue, instead, is simply this: Does the Fourth Amendment permit an international traveler, citizen or alien, to be subjected to the sort of treatment that occurred in this case without the sanction of a judicial officer and based on nothing more than the "reasonable suspicion" of low-ranking investigative officers that something might be amiss? The Court today concludes that the Fourth Amendment grants such sweeping and unmonitored authority to customs officials. It reasons that "[t]he permissibility of a particular law enforcement practice is judged by `balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against its promotion of legitimate governmental interests.' " Ante, at 537. The Court goes on to assert that the "balance of reasonableness is qualitatively different at the international border," and that searches and seizures in these circumstances may therefore be conducted without probable cause or a warrant. Ante, at 538. Thus a traveler at the Nation's border may be detained for criminal investigation merely if the authorities "reasonably suspect that the traveler is smuggling contraband." Ante, at 541. There are no "hard-and-fast time limits" for *550 such investigative detentions, because " `common sense and ordinary human experience must govern over rigid criteria.' " Ante, at 543. Applying this "reasonableness" test to the instant case, the Court concludes that the "[r]espondent alone was responsible for much of the duration and discomfort of the seizure." Ibid.
JUSTICE STEVENS takes a somewhat different tack. Apparently convinced that the health effects of x-irradiation on human beings stand established as so minimal as to be little cause for concern, he believes that low-ranking customs officials on their own initiative may require nonpregnant international travelers to submit to warrantless x rays on nothing more than suspicion if such travelers wish to avoid indeterminate warrantless detentions. Because De Hernandez withdrew her consent to proceed in handcuffs to such an examination, "[t]he prolonged detention of respondent was. . . justified." Ante, at 545 (concurring in judgment).
I dissent. Indefinite involuntary incommunicado detentions "for investigation" are the hallmark of a police state, not a free society. See, e. g., Dunaway v. New York, 442 U. S. 200 (1979); Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975); Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S. 721 (1969). In my opinion, Government officials may no more confine a person at the border under such circumstances for purposes of criminal investigation than they may within the interior of the country. The nature and duration of the detention here may well have been tolerable for spoiled meat or diseased animals, but not for human beings held on simple suspicion of criminal activity. I believe such indefinite detentions can be "reasonable" under the Fourth Amendment only with the approval of a magistrate. I also believe that such approval can be given only upon a showing of probable cause. Finally, I believe that the warrant and probable-cause safeguards equally govern JUSTICE STEVENS' proffered alternative of exposure to x-irradiation for criminal-investigative purposes.
*551 I
Travelers at the national border are routinely subjected to questioning, patdowns, and thorough searches of their belongings. These measures, which involve relatively limited invasions of privacy and which typically are conducted on all incoming travelers, do not violate the Fourth Amendment given the interests of "national self protection reasonably requiring one entering the country to identify himself as entitled to come in, and his belongings as effects which may be lawfully brought in." Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 154 (1925).[17] Individual travelers also may be singled out on "reasonable suspicion" and briefly held for further investigation. Cf. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968).[18] At some point, however, further investigation involves such severe intrusions on the values the Fourth Amendment protects that more stringent safeguards are required. For example, the length and nature of a detention may, at least when conducted for criminal-investigative purposes, ripen into something approximating a full-scale custodial arrest ย indeed, the arrestee, unlike the detainee in cases such as this, is at least given such basic rights as a telephone call, Miranda warnings, a bed, a prompt hearing before the nearest federal magistrate, an appointed attorney, and consideration of bail. In addition, border detentions may involve the use of such highly intrusive investigative techniques as body-cavity searches, x-ray searches, and stomach pumping.[19]
*552 I believe that detentions and searches falling into these more intrusive categories are presumptively "reasonable" within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment only if authorized by a judicial officer. "Though the Fourth Amendment speaks broadly of `unreasonable searches and seizures,' the definition of `reasonableness' turns, at least in part, on the more specific commands of the warrant clause." United States v. United States District Court, 407 U. S. 297, 315 (1972).
"The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime. . . . When the right of privacy must reasonably yield to the right of search is, as a rule, to be decided by a judicial officer, not by a policeman or government enforcement agent." Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, 13-14 (1948).
Accordingly, the Court repeatedly has emphasized that the Fourth Amendment's Warrant Clause is not mere "dead language" or a bothersome "inconvenience to be somehow `weighed' against the claims of police efficiency. It is, or should be, an important working part of our machinery of government, operating as a matter of course to check the `well-intentioned but mistakenly overzealous executive officers' who are a part of any system of law enforcement." United States v. United States District Court, supra, at 315; Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 473-484 (1971).