I find it highly unlikely that this is the whole story. Surely the police are not licensed to investigate a car based solely on its vanity plate and where it was parked...
You are probably right that more information drew police attention to the car, but “near the border” gets one most of the way to legally justified. In the 1970s, the US Supreme Court explicitly approved a permanent checkpoint approximately 50 miles north of the Mexican border.
I find it highly unlikely that this is the whole story. Surely the police are not licensed to investigate a car based solely on its vanity plate and where it was parked...
You are probably right that more information drew police attention to the car, but “near the border” gets one most of the way to legally justified. In the 1970s, the US Supreme Court explicitly approved a permanent checkpoint approximately 50 miles north of the Mexican border.
Well that’s a rather depressing piece of law...