STUDY FINDS WIDE DISPARITIES IN CUSTOMS' INTRUSIVE SEARCHES

African American women returning from abroad were disproportionately
singled out for strip-searches by U.S. Customs Service inspectors at
airports, according to a congressional report scheduled for release today.

Black women were nearly twice as likely to be strip-searched on suspicion
of smuggling drugs as white men and women, the report by the congressional
General Accounting Office said. Moreover, black women were three times as
likely as African American men to be strip-searched.

The intrusive searches were not justified by a higher rate of discovery of
contraband among minority groups, according to the report.

Only about 102,000 of the roughly 140 million Americans returning from
abroad were subject to special searches in fiscal years 1997 and 1998. The
GAO said 95 percent of those were given simple pat-downs and were not
required to disrobe.

Another 4 percent underwent strip-searches and 1 percent were X-rayed.
African American men and women were nearly nine times as likely as white
men and women to be X-rayed, while Hispanic American men and women were
nearly four times as likely, the report said.

The GAO prepared the report for Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), and it is
the first comprehensive analysis of "personal-search" patterns by the
Customs Service. The report follows two years of criticism by minority
women in Chicago and other cities who have complained of "racial profiling"
and humiliating treatment by Customs inspectors.

Since 1998, the Customs Service has tightened up search procedures and put
its lawyers on 24-hour duty to advise inspectors who detain travelers
suspected of smuggling drugs or other contraband.

"We have made it clear to our people that racial profiling will not,
cannot, be tolerated," Customs Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said in an
interview.

Customs said the number of intrusive searches has dropped by about half,
and those that are conducted are far more likely to find drugs.

But Durbin said the GAO analysis showed the need for legislation that would
ban racial profiling by Customs and "make sure this is a permanent policy
that lives beyond Kelly and this particular report."

Durbin has drafted a bill to require Customs to document its reasons for
frisking or intrusively searching individuals and submit such information
to Congress annually. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who also has investigated
claims that Customs mistreats international travelers, has introduced
similar legislation in the House.

Every year, the Customs Service seizes hundreds of pounds of cocaine and
heroin that international air passengers carry inside their clothes or in
their bodies. Growing numbers of smugglers swallow cocaine-filled balloons
or insert packages of heroin and cocaine into their body cavities,
officials said.

Customs has far-reaching powers, upheld by the courts, to take travelers
to holding rooms for pat-downs. Customs inspectors look for passengers
who give evasive answers to their questions, exhibit signs of nervousness
or give off other clues, such as wearing thick-soled shoes.

Often inspectors act on general information about a flight from "source
countries" of the drug cartels or on intelligence tips about a specific
passenger.

If a frisk or strip-search fails to ease an inspector's suspicions, the
passenger can be handcuffed and taken from the airport to a hospital or
clinic where doctors probe the person's body or take X-rays. Travelers
may be forced to drink laxatives to enable inspectors to monitor bowel
movements. Detention times can last from hours to days.

About 3 percent of the passengers undergoing a pat-down were caught
with contraband. Twenty-three percent of strip-searches turned up drugs
and 31 percent of X-rays were positive, the GAO found.

In its study, the GAO analyzed the data by gender and race and said
women and men were equally likely to carry drugs, and whites and blacks
were equally likely to be caught smuggling drugs.

Some passengers, however, were more likely than others to be forced to
undergo an intrusive search, the GAO found.

"The most pronounced difference occurred with black women who were U.S.
citizens," the GAO report said. "They were nine times more likely than
white women who were U.S. citizens to be X-rayed after being frisked or
patted down in fiscal year 1998.

"But on the basis of X-ray results, black women who were U.S. citizens were
less than half as likely to be found carrying contraband as white women,"
the GAO said.

Hugh Price, president of the National Urban League, said the GAO report
showed "a major profiling problem. . . . It is a pattern of outrageous
behavior."

Amanda Buritica of Port Chester, N.Y., said the GAO report showed why
Customs needed to change its procedures. "I don't want people put through
the hell they put me through," she said.

Buritica was held for 22 hours at a San Francisco hospital in 1994, given a
laxative and X-rayed. Her lawyers argued that Customs had no reason to
suspect her of being a drug courier, and a federal jury agreed, awarding
her $450,000.

In Chicago, Customs faces a class-action lawsuit originally brought by
about 80 women, but the number has grown to about 1,300 women, lawyer
Edward M. Fox said. Fox said Kelly's policy changes "are a step in the
right direction."

Customs officials said Kelly's changes have reduced the number of intrusive
searches from 1,386 in the first six months of fiscal 1998 to 649 for the
same period in fiscal 2000.

According to Customs data from Oct. 1, 1999, to March 31, 2000, more
African Americans and Hispanics than whites were X-rayed, but Customs found
drugs in more than half the cases involving minorities, officials said.

"We have to factor in where the drugs are coming from," Kelly said. "We are
never going to have searches that reflect in a proportionate way people who
are traveling. It is skewed by where the drugs come from and skewed in some
sense by the intelligence information we collect."

During the past year, Kelly began a new policy requiring Customs
supervisors to approve all pat-downs and senior managers to approve body
searches that involve taking a traveler to a medical facility. Kelly also
revised the handbook used by inspectors, increased their training and
ordered more systematic collection of data on searches.

Customs purchased 10 body-scan machines, which see through clothing, to
make the search process less intrusive. The machines have been installed at
major airports, including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York
and Washington. Customs also plans to spend $9 million this fiscal year to
install on-site X-ray machines at nine airports.