August 24, 2006

U.S. family says racially profiled at NY airport

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The American Civil Liberties Union and a leading Islamic group on Wednesday accused security officials at New York's JFK airport of racially profiling Muslims.

"The price to pay for racial profiling is too high," Dennis Parker of the American Civil Liberties Union told a news conference. "All people should be treated in the same way regardless of their race, their ethnicity or their religion."

Arwa Ibrahim (L), Nagham Al-Yaqoubi (2nd, L) and Sumia Ibrahim (2nd, R) listen as Omar Mohammedi, a lawyer with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, describes their detention at Kennedy Airport when traveling home from a trip to Dubai on August 15 at a news conference in New York August 23, 2006. (REUTERS/Jeff Zelevansky)

The news conference, convened by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, highlighted the case of an Iraqi-born U.S. family, whose members said they were held for six hours, questioned and searched at John F. Kennedy Airport.

Arwa and Sumia Ibrahim and their mother, Nagham Alyaqoubi, said they were held with 200 other people at JFK after returning from holiday in Jordan on Aug. 15, days after Britain foiled a plot to bomb U.S.-bound planes.

The 20-year-old twin sisters, who traveled home via Dubai, said people from several other flights from different countries were also detained.

"Of the 200 people required to go through this procedure, we would estimate that 98 percent, if not more, were Arab, South Asian or Muslim," Sumia Ibrahim said.

"We really do feel our rights were violated as U.S. citizens," she said. She said she and her sister, who moved to the United States when they were five, were also asked their views on the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The women said U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials took away their passports. They said they felt degraded and humiliated by the whole experience and are considering legal action.

Lucille Cirillo, a supervisory Customs and Border Protection Officer in New York, said the agency does not use racial profiling, however due to heightened security airline passengers were being scrutinized more thoroughly.

"We do scrutinize more carefully people coming from high risk areas of the world," said Cirillo.

The security alert on passenger planes in the United States was raised to its highest level for the first time to red or "severe" threat on commercial flights from Britain for several days after the bomb plot was foiled on Aug. 10.

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