Leaning against a post at the Port Authority Bus Station in Manhattan, Eduardo Velázquez waits to find out from someone if he needs identification to travel on the Greyhound bus.

Velázquez saw on television that it is becoming impossible for many undocumented immigrants in California and Arizona to travel with Greyhound bus without a valid government-issued identification.

Greyhound, the largest bus company in the United States, which also operates in Mexico and Canada, is implementing a policy that prohibits its employees from selling tickets to undocumented immigrants.

Many advocacy groups and passengers described this policy – adopted by Greyhound in 2002 after another company was accused of working with people who transport undocumented immigrants – as racist, discriminating against Hispanics.

“To a certain degree, it’s racism because most of us don’t have a legal status,” says Eric Gómez, a Mexican migrant worker who travels regularly through the Northeast.

However, according to Gómez, the policy in New York seems to be applied randomly because he was able to buy a ticket without identification.

“The last 10 times that I traveled within the United States, they only asked me twice for my ID,” adds Gómez.

Velázquez heard this story, but he decided not to take the risk. “I found work in North Carolina, but I’ll wait until next week,” he says.

Of the three other people interviewed by Hoy, two were asked for identification and a third bought a ticket with no problem.

Anna Folmnsbee, spokesperson for Greyhound, says that the business is complying with a federal law, which prohibits transporting undocumented persons.

“We train our employees so that common sense will help them identify the behavior of clients who want to transport illegal immigrants.”

Víctor Nieblas, a member of the American Association of Immigration Lawyers, insists that the measure is absurd because “they [Greyhound] can’t train people who are not lawyers to implement immigration laws. They have to use racial characteristics.”

Óscar Paredes of the Latin American Workers Project says: “It is a racist attitude. There are workers who travel in different seasons and only the buses can take them where they want to go.”

Greyhound transported 21.2 million passengers last year to over 2,200 destinations. It has a fleet of over 2,700 buses and 9,700 employees.