Much-needed legislation to remedy this situation was introduced during the 106th Congress. While this bill did not receive a vote, supporters are planning to try again in the 107th Congress. Innocent people of color are searched disproportionately by Customs Agents. A General Accounting Office study revealed that approximately 67 percent of the passengers subjected to personal searches upon entering the United States were people of color. Black and Latino Americans were four to nine times as likely as white Americans to be x-rayed after being frisked or patted down.
Black women are more likely than any other U.S. citizens to be strip-searched.
The GAO found that in 1997 to 1998, an astounding 97 percent of passengers forced to submit to pat down searches, and 77 percent of the passengers forced to submit to strip searches, were innocent. The customs legislation could be groundbreaking. If enacted, the legislation would mark the first time Congress has explicitly barred a federal law enforcement agency from using race, religion, gender, national origin or sexual orientation in a profile to determine who is going to be detained or searched. The legislation would help quantify the problem. If passed, racial profiling legislation would require the Customs Service to collect data about the race, gender, and national origin or citizenship of individuals searched, and to report annually to Congress on those findings.