And some have ended up being detained for periods despite being citizens…and not just Ali.
Acquaintances of a close friend who were native-born Americans were likewise detained by CBP for several hours and subjected to questions about their purported Muslim background because they “looked Muslim”. And it was topped off by CBP agents taunting them about that background and implying the EO issued by the Yuge one gave them carte blanche to do so. What a way for newlyweds to come back from a honeymoon.
Friend and her husband just got back from taking her grandchildren - 14 and 8 - to Disney World. Her grandchildren have a father who immigrated from a Middle Eastern country, mother is American born caucasian. The 2 kids look Middle Eastern. 14 year old girl gets pulled out in Orlando Airport (only one of the group of 4). Questioned intensely, her laptop swabbed with Q-tips and inspected. This was a domestic flight.
I’ve been singled out on at least 3 occasions and had my luggage searched and my laptop swabbed. I’m a white male, and on at least one occasion I was in my pilot uniform. It’s a common practice.
I’m still wondering if the domestic flight people who were “asked” to show ID to get off the plane would have had to comply. They shouldn’t be asked to show ID since they are already in the US, but doesn’t the TSA have the right to search any bag? Wouldn’t that include your purse or wallet?
I, too, am a white male, and I’ve traveled to and from the US 2-3 times a year for the last 15 years. This has never happened to me. Maybe you look “suspicious”?
It must be the airport you use. Everyone in my family has been singled out for a closer look at ATL over that time period. Swabbing, wanding, go through the body scanner instead of metal detector, etc. I get it the most. The TSA folks will only say it’s “random”. It does seem to be decreasing in frequency. I don’t know if that’s because of Global Entry/TSA PreCheck or if these “random” searches are decreasing overall. More gray hair == less suspicious?
BTW, after 9/11 I started getting lectured about my papers at security because my official ID had my full first name and on my Delta ticket I had my nickname (think, “Nick” vs. “Nicholas”).
We used to cross the southern border once a year with friends from the UK who were green card holders. They were harassed and subjected to unwarranted questions and comments by CBP nearly every time. It’s nothing new, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s worse now, especially for certain groups of people. Oversight and accountability would be great.
TSA can be ridiculous, especially considering what gets through after all this “security”. Last time my college kids flew back to school, one was pulled aside by TSA for extra screening (apparently because she packed coffee beans next to her portable dvd player in her carryon bag). It culminated in a stern lecture from a guy with “explosives” written in large letters across his shirt. They opened the new, sealed bags of beans. Another friend has had her hair pawed through by TSA and was very offended by the experience. Neither of these incidents were race related. Some of this stuff is equal opportunity, but some of it isn’t and I’d be all the more nervous to be a minority or a targeted group right now.
As a counter-example though, there’s a TSA person at our local airport, she’s often there when we head through security. I’ve never noticed her doing screening, but greeting people and making sure they get in the right line for TSA. She’s a ray of sunshine and I’ve told her so. We dropped one kid off to head back to college last fall and she really stood out greeting everyone. We were leaving a few days later to move in the second kid, and I remember thinking, “I hope she’s there next time.” She was there, and a friendly face was great on that stressful morning. If TSA and CBP would only hire more people like that…no one deserves to be treated as less than human, even when additional screening is warranted.
Any hand or body lotion with glycerin will set off the bomb detectors, one reason they get so many hits on computer keyboards. They also randomly swab people in the line. For that, it is luck of the draw.
Especially with the full body scanners they use now, anything that looks ‘out of the norm’ can get flagged. I have gotten flagged for special screening because I wear a kind of support around my chest area that flags as being out of the norm, last time I flew they ran a bomb check on me (I have another one that looks more like a t shirt that they didn’t flag). Lots of things can trip it off, and it also depends on the airport from what I have read, some places they check things more closely than others, for whatever reasons.
As far as ‘voluntarily’ showing their ids when checking for someone on board, that is like ‘you have been volunteered’ in the military, legally you can refuse, but they also then could for example take you off the flight from what I understand, so there is more than a bit of coercion there , or the prospect of you holding up an entire airplane full of people deplaning while you argue with them. The other question is was there at least a general description of the person involved? . If they were looking, for example, for someone described as 5’ 5" tall and dark skinned let’s say Middle Eastern and a male, then why would you ask for the credentials of someone who is 6’ tall, male or female (in case you think the person, if male, was disguised as a woman)? Why would you ask someone who is African American?
That is NOT the policy and never has been. They are not randomly going up to a group of people who ‘look foreign’ and demanding ID for no cause. The policy if to concentrate on those who have been convicted of crimes or who have been repeatedly deported and have returned, but if you come to the attention of law enforcement is no longer random.
They are not only ‘going after those convicted of murder or major crimes’ (if you are the victim of a crime, you’ll feel it is major no matter if it is theft or assault or misuse of your SSN or murder) and never said they were.They are prioritizing those with the most serious records but not ignoring others. Most of those deported have not murdered anyone. They have orders of deportation or have been deported numerous times but returned, they have used false documentation (SSN, licenses, insurance papers, medicaid cards), they have convictions for robbery or assault or drunk driving or driving without insurance. Victimless crimes? Hardly.
^^ That’s what the agent told him. The employer claimed she was called by CBP and backed up his story so that’s what really got him cleared. More likely the agent just said that to intimidate him. And as the article says, it’s a ridiculous test and the CBP agent was in no position to validate the question nor the answer.
That would be very unusual considering the long commute times from many airports to universities, the time consuming nature of CS…especially for many native-born US students, and how if a student’s talented enough in CS to swing night classes and work for CBP, s/he’d also be in great demand for high paying co-op/internship/part-time jobs much more closely related to programming/software development careers which most CS majors aspire to.
There’s also the factor that from working with dozens of CS/engineering majors, they tend to be staunch right-leaning libertarians or radical progressive lefty neo-hippie types.
While they may seem polar opposites in many ways, CS/engineering majors I knew from both camps do seem to agree that they want to have as little to do with LEO related careers/folks as possible due to their political beliefs.
Not to mention there’s many disturbing parallels between this CBP “engineering test” and how literacy tests were administered by and graded at the complete whim of local voter registration officials in the Jim Crow South…
It was said that such officials could administer and grade such literacy tests so even a Black person with a high degree of education…including an elite U PhD or equivalent would fail such tests.
