Aviation securityHouse wants to know about racial profiling at Newark airport

After a federal report revealed that behavior detection officers (BDOs) at New Jersey’s Newark airport routinely used racial profiling to screen passengers, the heads of the House Homeland Security Committee are demanding answers.

Representative Peter King (R – New York), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Bennie Thompson (D – Mississippi), the committee’s ranking Democrat, are currently investigating how racial profiling became a common practice at Newark airport.

According to the January 2010 report, in an effort to boost its performance numbers and appear productive, Newark’s BDO unit began singling out Hispanic passengers for additional screening, searches, and questioning in 2008 and 2009.

The report found that Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees called the managers and BDOs who engaged in racial profiling “the Great Mexican Hunters.”

Newark’s former TSA director investigated the issue and ordered an investigation into the matter after receiving several complaints that passengers with expired passports or lapsed visas were being targeted for further screening or handed over to immigration officials.

Representatives King and Thompson have requested that TSA head John Pistole provide a more thorough explanation.

In a statement, King said, “We have been in contact with TSA. We are looking forward to hearing Administrator Pistole’s analysis. After that, we will determine our course of action.”

Thompson, a critic of the TSA’s Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program which employs the BDOs, said the recent report confirms his fears that the program is vulnerable to abuse.

“TSA should halt the SPOT program immediately until safeguards are put into place to address racial and ethnic profiling concerns,” Thompson said in a statement. “I will write TSA and request to see this internal report.”

Racial profiling is a violation of TSA policy and has been declared unconstitutional in several contexts.

Ed Borcas, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New Jersey, said the report was “deeply troubling.”

Meanwhile William Buckman, a lawyer who has used allegations of racial profiling to overturn many drug convictions in New Jersey, said that he was not surprised by the report’s findings.

“I’ve heard many anecdotal complaints about that,” Buckman said. “Racial profiling seems to be a fallback position to produce statistics” for airport screeners and state troopers.

TSA has acknowledged the report, but maintains that Newark has retrained its BDOs and has taken precautionary measures to prevent racial profiling from occurring again.