-Caveat Lector-
US customs agents search based on race, panel told
By Christopher Wilson
WASHINGTON, May 20 (Reuters) - After a rash of incidents involving what has
come to be known as ``racial profiling,'' a House of Representatives panel on
Thursday heard testimony from two women who said they had been subjected to
humiliating body searches by U.S. customs officials because they are not
white.
The hearing showed a growing recognition on Capitol Hill, by the Justice
Department and in state capitals around America that police, customs
officials, immigration agents and other authorities may be using the
``profiling'' to target blacks and other minorities for checks, questioning
and searches, only because of their race.
The women -- Janneral Denson, who is black, and Amanda Buritica, a
Colombian-born Hispanic -- gave a House Ways and Means Oversight subcommittee
separate accounts of how they were detained by customs agents while trying to
reenter the United States at airports after travelling out of the country.
The women detailed how they were held incommunicado for hours, made to
undergo intrusive ``body cavity'' searches to determine whether they were
carrying drugs and forced to drink laxatives to induce bowel movements.
They were detained without charges, denied lawyers and not allowed to contact
their families.
Neither woman was found to be carrying any contraband and both were released
by the Customs Service without apology.
Customs Service Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the agency's policies did not
allow officers to base decisions on who would be searched on race and
defended body searches as necessary in the war on drugs. But he agreed the
service had to be more considerate of the trauma such searches entail.
``That the government has such authority over its own citizens is
troubling,'' said John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat whose past as a civil rights
activist has made him a leading voice on race issues in Congress.
``That such authority may be exercised in a racially discriminatory manner is
chilling.''
Denson, the mother of two children who was pregnant at the time, was
handcuffed at one stage of her ordeal. She later suffered bleeding and
diarrhoea and her third child was born prematurely by emergency caesarean
section.
``At this point we do not know what permanent effects the premature birth
will have on my son,'' she told lawmakers.
``What I and many other African-Americans have gone through points to a great
failure in our country. Conduct such as this is both illegal and un-American
and in the long run can only serve to drive a wedge between you, the
government, and the citizens of our country.''
The House subcommittee heard that customs inspectors conducted 50,892
personal searches of airline passengers in 1998. Black or Hispanic people
made up 43 percent of those searched yet those races make up only 24 percent
of the U.S. population according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
In trying to find a balance between protecting the rights of its citizens and
the ``zero-tolerance'' doctrine widely practiced in law enforcement, America
is being confronted increasingly with the dilemma of racial profiling.
Highway police in different part of the country routinely use traffic stops
for minor offences as a pretext to search motorists for drugs, weapons or
evidence of any other criminal activity. Anecdotal and statistical evidence
shows many more people of colour are targeted for these stops than whites.
The black community calls this ``driving while black.'' Police and other
law-enforcement agents maintain the practice does not reflect prejudice so
much as a focus on high-crime groups. They point out that roughly half
America's prison inmates are blacks, although blacks comprise just 12 percent
of the overall population.
Several state courts are hearing complaints about such cases involving
law-enforcement authorities, but there is now a move afoot to compile
national statistics on such cases.
Last month President Bill Clinton's administration said it would take steps
to stop the use of racial profiling and Attorney General Janet Reno said the
Justice Department was investigating what could be done about law-enforcement
agencies that appear to target black and Hispanic minorities.
ACLU: Drug War Based on Race
By DONNA DE LA CRUZ
.c The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) -- Civil rights activists say a casualty from the war on drugs
has been a sharp increase in the incidence of racial profiling by law
officers patrolling highways across the country.
``Skin color has become a substitute for evidence in a way that really
resembles Jim Crow justice on the nation's highways,'' Ira Glasser, head of
the American Civil Liberties Union, said Wednesday as the group released its
report on the controversial practice.
The Drug Enforcement Administration's ``Operation Pipeline'' has trained at
least 27,000 law enforcers to use race as a factor in spotting potential drug
couriers, Glasser said.
The practice is so common that the minority community has given it the
derisive term DWB -- ``driving while black or brown,'' or stopping minorities
for no reason other than their skin color.
DEA officials in Washington did not immediately return calls for comment on
``Operation Pipeline,'' launched in 1986.
The ACLU's report is largely a collection of case studies from 23 states and
not a statistical analysis.
``By laying out the facts in such detail in this report, we hope that we can
now get beyond `Is there really a problem?' to `What are we as a nation going
to do about it?''' said David Harris, a University of Toledo law professor
and author of the report.
``We don't suggest that this will be easy, only that it is necessary if we
are to call ourselves a democratic nation.''
The ACLU is calling on police departments to voluntarily begin documenting
incidents of racial profiling. Some already have, including the forces in San
Diego and San Jose, Calif.
In April, North Carolina became the first state to pass a law requiring data
collection on all traffic stops. Similar bills have been introduced in
Congress and in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Maryland,
Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Virginia.
``If you're a young black man there's three things you can count on in your
lifetime: death, taxes and police harassment,'' said ACLU lawyer Reginald
Shuford.
The ACLU has pending lawsuits in Maryland, Illinois, New Jersey and Oklahoma
regarding racial profiling.
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