ElNono
06-12-2011, 12:39 PM
Report: Newark airport screeners targeted Mexicans
NEWARK — A special unit of airport screeners, charged with detecting suspicious behavior, engaged in racial profiling so frequently at Newark Liberty International Airport that their resentful colleagues called them "Mexican hunters," according to an internal federal report.
Officially known as behavior detection officers, or BDOs, the screeners were supposed to focus on nervous, erratic or evasive gestures or speech and other indicators to single out passengers for extra scrutiny, but instead they concentrated on whether Mexican or Dominican passengers had proper visas or passport stamps, the report said — all at the direction of their managers.
If not, those passengers would be subjected to bag searches, pat downs, questioning and referrals to immigration with bogus behaviors invented by the screeners to cover up the real reason the passengers were singled out.
"It became a joke in the unit, these individuals were called the great Mexican hunters," Newark BDO Paul Animone told investigators, according the report. "I did not agree or did not go along with these types of referrals, but if I was teamed up with one of these BDOs, I would go along with the referral and perform the bag check. When I disagreed with these referrals and brought it to the attention of the BDO managers, I was told by the BDO managers that I was not a team player."
Known as the "Boston Report" because it was compiled by a pair of TSA inquiry officers brought in from Boston Logan International Airport, the document is dated Jan. 25, 2010, and addressed to Newark’s federal security director at the time, Barbara Bonn Powell.
Copies of the Boston report and several related TSA documents were obtained by The Star-Ledger.
Full Story (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/06/report_newark_airport_screener.html)
NEWARK — A special unit of airport screeners, charged with detecting suspicious behavior, engaged in racial profiling so frequently at Newark Liberty International Airport that their resentful colleagues called them "Mexican hunters," according to an internal federal report.
Officially known as behavior detection officers, or BDOs, the screeners were supposed to focus on nervous, erratic or evasive gestures or speech and other indicators to single out passengers for extra scrutiny, but instead they concentrated on whether Mexican or Dominican passengers had proper visas or passport stamps, the report said — all at the direction of their managers.
If not, those passengers would be subjected to bag searches, pat downs, questioning and referrals to immigration with bogus behaviors invented by the screeners to cover up the real reason the passengers were singled out.
"It became a joke in the unit, these individuals were called the great Mexican hunters," Newark BDO Paul Animone told investigators, according the report. "I did not agree or did not go along with these types of referrals, but if I was teamed up with one of these BDOs, I would go along with the referral and perform the bag check. When I disagreed with these referrals and brought it to the attention of the BDO managers, I was told by the BDO managers that I was not a team player."
Known as the "Boston Report" because it was compiled by a pair of TSA inquiry officers brought in from Boston Logan International Airport, the document is dated Jan. 25, 2010, and addressed to Newark’s federal security director at the time, Barbara Bonn Powell.
Copies of the Boston report and several related TSA documents were obtained by The Star-Ledger.
Full Story (http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/06/report_newark_airport_screener.html)