The department said in a statement that the checkpoints were “strategically placed where illegal cross-border smuggling is most likely to converge.”

Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said the department had occasionally pushed the limits of its authority to conduct searches without a warrant far from the border.

“Inevitably, one of these cases is going to get to the Supreme Court, which will have to revisit the seemingly limitless government authority the department claims it has,” Mr. Vladeck said. “It cannot be the case that anyone who lives or travels within 100 miles of the border has no Fourth Amendment rights.”

The Fourth Amendment protects against “unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Current federal immigration law does not require the government to obtain a warrant before searching people and their property at ports of entry. Once away from a land or maritime border, but still within what the Justice Department has defined as a “reasonable distance” of 100 miles, officers can search people who are suspected of immigration violations and smuggling drugs.

But many border residents and travelers say that authority amounts to an invasion of privacy.

An estimated 200 million Americans live within 100 miles of the border, according to the A.C.L.U. At least 11 states — mostly in the Northeast and Florida — are either entirely or almost entirely in the 100-mile radius.

A measure to limit that distance to 25 miles passed the Senate in 2013 but was rejected by the House; it was proposed after Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, was stopped by the Border Patrol at an immigration checkpoint.

The legal dispute in Texas challenges the Border Patrol’s authority to search private property without permission. By law, officers can go onto private property within 25 miles of the border without permission from the owner.