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VIDEO: Austin citizen exercises right to stay silent at border checkpoint

While going through a checkpoint in Sarita, Texas, on his way from Brownsville to Austin last week, Llamas declined to answer border patrol agents when asked about his citizenship

AUSTIN -- He exercised his right to stay silent, and now a UT graduate tells KVUE that border patrol agents are telling his parents he's under investigation for "suspicion of terrorism/human smuggling."

"I am where I am because I've had certain privileges in my life, but I recognize that not everyone has been that lucky,” said Ricky Llamas, whose video of his interaction with border patrol has gotten thousands of views since it was posted to Facebook Monday.

Llamas was born in Mexico. His father brought him to the United States when he was three years old for a job relocation.

"I definitely grew to love this country,” said Llamas, a naturalized U.S. citizen.

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So when he saw the recent images of children separated from their parents at the border, he was sickened and disgusted.

Llamas said he can understand their fear firsthand.

"That could have been me, that could have been me once upon a time. That's, that's hard to think about,” he said while holding back tears.

Llamas decided that "civil disobedience is probably one of the best ways to protest something that you don't believe in,” so he made a decision.

While going through a checkpoint in Sarita, Texas, on his way from Brownsville to Austin last week, Llamas declined to answer border patrol agents when asked about his citizenship.

Llamas had been through the Sarita checkpoint dozens of times. He said he's questioned regularly when they find out he was born in Mexico.

"I feel like I'm on trial now, like I have to defend my right to be in this country where I'm a citizen,” said Llamas.

He researched and discovered he was legally allowed to exercise his right to stay silent.

According to the ACLU:

“You do not have to answer questions about your immigration status. You may simply say that you do not wish to answer those questions. If you choose to remain silent, the agent will likely ask you questions for longer, but your silence alone is not enough to support probable cause or reasonable suspicion to arrest, detain, or search you or your belongings.”

When Llamas told agents he was exercising his right to stay silent, they took him to a secondary checkpoint and continued to question him.

“I was surrounded by about four or five agents, they put spikes under my tires,” said Llamas.

After more than an hour of questioning, he was released. Llamas said he was never under suspicion of committing a crime, so they let him go.

Days later, however, Llamas said agents tracked down his parents' number possibly through his license plate registration.

"Then she [his mother] was told, ‘Was she aware that only drug traffickers, human smugglers and terrorists refused to answer that question and that, as a result, I was under investigation for all three,’ and I think that left her shocked,” said Llamas.

Now Llamas waits, terrified this could affect his job and his life, but he said it was worth taking a stand for.

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