New Michigan Law Lets Cops Seize Cash At Airports, No Crime Required

Although summer travel is heating up, anyone traveling with cash may want to think twice about flying in and out of Michigan. Late last month, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed two bills (HB 4631 and HB 4632) that expand civil forfeiture at airports, making it much easier for law enforcement to seize—and permanently keep—cash and other valuables from travelers.

“Allowing authorities to take air travelers’ cash without a criminal conviction, simply because they have a large sum of money, is a blatant violation of their rights,” said Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Dan Alban, who co-leads IJ’s National Initiative to End Forfeiture Abuse. “This will lead to innocent people losing their money and is a massive step in the wrong direction by Michigan lawmakers.”

Although Michigan and 36 other states have reformed their forfeiture laws over the past decade, the Wolverine State is one of just a handful of states that have backtracked and the only state that carved out a loophole for airport seizures. Less than three years ago, Michigan reformed its civil forfeiture laws by approving a criminal conviction provision. SB 2 was bipartisan, passing with only three votes against it. Though well-intentioned, the conviction provision only applied to cases where the owner fought back in court (a costly and lengthy process) and if the property was worth under $50,000.

Otherwise people could still lose their property to civil forfeiture without being convicted of a crime. So even after the reforms, Michigan still received a D- for its civil forfeiture laws, according to a report by the Institute for Justice.

But these modest protections were apparently too much for Michigan lawmakers. The newly signed laws will let police employed by a public or regional airport authority forfeit property without a criminal conviction, or even a criminal charge, so long as it’s valued at over $20,000. Once a property is forfeited, state law lets cops keep 100% of the proceeds in drug cases—a massive incentive to police to profit.

Airports are already a massive cash cow for federal law enforcement, a trend that can only worsen after Michigan loosened its safeguards. A 2016 investigation by USA Today found that between 2006 and 2015, DEA agents conducted over 430 cash seizures at the Detroit Metro Airport. All told, the DEA confiscated over $7.5 million in cash from just that one airport.

To fight back against unjust seizures, the Institute for Justice is currently litigating a nationwide class action lawsuit against the DEA and TSA for violating “the Fourth Amendment rights of thousands of air travelers each year.” IJ’s lawsuit has already resulted in the DEA returning more than $82,000 to Terry Rollins, a retired railroad engineer who had his life savings confiscated, and the return of over $43,000 to Stacy Jones, who had her cash seized while flying home to Tampa. Neither Terry nor Stacy were ever charged with a crime.

“Traveling with cash is not a crime,” added Alban. “People regularly fly with large amounts of cash for a wide variety of completely legitimate reasons related to their business or personal finances.”