Customs Retools to End Race Profiling

The U.S. Customs Service has overhauled its guidelines for handling airline passengers after criticism that it had used “racial profiling” to decide whom to search, U.S. Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Tuesday.

Racial profiling “cannot be tolerated as part of Customs practices,” Kelly said after meeting with inspectors at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport, one of the agency’s busiest facilities. “These clearer guidelines will greatly reduce that potential.”

Effective Oct. 15, customs officers must notify a federal magistrate in cases where passengers are held for more than four hours, and a customs supervisor must approve all “pat-down” personal searches, except a search for weapons.

“If you’re doing a pat-down search for contraband, you have to get the approval of a supervisor,” Kelly said. “Until a supervisor arrives, the search should not go forward.”