Did you know that a March 2000 General Accounting Office report found that black women were nine times more likely to be X-rayed after being frisked or patted down than white women? They also reported that black women were less than half as likely to be found carrying contraband as white women.

It also reported that less than 1/10th of 1% of the drugs seized by the Customs Service each year are found as a result of personal searches. According to the study, an astounding 97% of the passengers searched by the Customs Service are innocent.

Yvette Bradley, a black New York City advertising executive, surely thought herself above suspicion when she arrived at Newark airport after vacationing in Jamaica when she and most of the other black women on the flight were targeted for search and interrogation by U.S. Customs agents. Because of this incident, the ACLU filed a federal lawsuit alleging racial profiling by the US Customs Service. The case focuses upon a very complete and personally invasive physical search that Customs officials claim was nothing more than a routine "patdown."

Latinos don't need to fly to feel the sting of the U.S. Customs Service. In fact, latinos living near our border with Mexico often get double barrel profiling from there local police agencies and Border Patrol agents.

A recent decision by the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals prohibits Border Patrol Agents from considering - even partly - Hispanic appearance when deciding to stop motorists near the El Centro checkpoint in California along the US-Mexican Border. They said that as 70% of Imperial County's population is latino, a stop based on ethnicity cannot be valid. Does that make it stop? Not according to American Hispanics. Learn more by visiting:

http://www.aclu.org/features/f051200a.html - ACLU Sues U.S. Customs Service Over Degrading Search in Case of 'Flying While Black'
http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/w072400d.html - "Driving While Brown" Called an Added Risk in Border Areas
http://www.aclu.org/news/2000/n062800a.html - Racial Profiling Report Calls for Judicial Review of Border Searches; Shows Need for Legislation