The searches it conducts are among the most intrusive, humiliating, and degrading search procedures available to law enforcement. Your bill will help to protect the Constitutional rights of all travelers to equal protection and personal privacy as they enter the United States. A study by the General Accounting Office in March of 2000 of Customs personal search practices revealed that over 50,000 people each year in fiscal years 1997 and 1998 were forced to submit to patdown searches, strip searches, x-rays, body cavity searches, the administration of laxatives, monitored bowel movements, and other search procedures. In such circumstances, discriminatory invasions into the personal integrity and liberty of individuals are even more outrageous and unjustifiable. At its core, the Fourth Amendment prohibits the government from invading the personal privacy and integrity of an individual without strong evidence of crime.
Race bears no causal relationship to crime.
Race is never a legitimate indicator that should raise the suspicion of Customs officials, and should never be used as part of a drug courier profile. Yet the GAO study presented disturbing evidence that racial bias has tainted Customs enforcement. Black and Hispanic individuals were approximately four to nine times more likely than White individuals to be x-rayed after being frisked or patted down. Black women have the highest likelihood of being strip-searched of all U.S. citizens. GAO reported that in some cases, people of color who were more likely to be invasively searched by Customs officials were significantly less likely to be found carrying illegal substances.