WASHINGTON -- Attempting to ferret out drug smugglers, the Customs Service strip-searched hundreds of airline passengers last year and transported 675 to hospitals for X-ray inspections, usually in handcuffs.
Some were detained for hours, even days, without being allowed to call a lawyer or family members. About a fourth of them were caught with drugs.The other 73 percent -- tourists returning home, business travelers, foreign visitors -- were clean.
"I was humiliated -- I couldn't believe it was happening," said Gwendolyn Richards of Chicago, who is suing Customs over a five-hour ordeal in which she was strip-searched, X-rayed and subjected to a pelvic exam. "They had no reason to think I had drugs."
Customs officials say tough tactics are necessary to catch the growing number of smugglers who swallow cocaine-filled balloons, insert packages of heroin into their body cavities, even hide drugs in a hollow leg or under cover of a fake pregnancy.
"We still have a major drug problem in this country," Customs Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in an interview this week. "We have to do this."
But, on the heels of lawsuits and complaints to Congress, the agency is reviewing some of its search policies.
The review comes after several lawsuits and complaints from travelers who say they suffered abusive treatment and hours of confinement. For instance:
A Florida mother contends her baby was born prematurely because Customs officials forced her to take a prescription laxative when she was seven months' pregnant. In a lawsuit filed last month, Janneral Denson, 25, said she was taken from the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in 1997 and shackled to a hospital bed for two days so inspectors could watch her bowel movements. She says her son, born 12 days later, suffered damage.
Two Jamaican-born U.S. citizens each filed a $500,000 claim in September over body cavity searches and X-rays in Tampa, Fla. One of the women learned afterward she was pregnant and agonized that her fetus might have been harmed, according to their attorney, Warren Hope Dawson. The baby was born healthy. Customs policy requires a pregnancy test before a woman is X-rayed, but Dawson said the pregnant woman was not tested.
A 51-year-old widow returning from an around-the-world trip was held for 22 hours at a San Francisco hospital, X-rayed and given the same powerful laxative. Amanda Buritica of Port Chester, N.Y., won a $451,001 lawsuit in February. A Boston nurse, Bosede Adedeji, won $215,000 in a similar lawsuit in 1991.
Acknowledging that searches "can get pretty traumatic," Kelly said Customs is experimenting with new technology that might reduce the number of body searches. Kelly, who took office Aug. 4, said the agency also has increased training for inspectors and hired a consultant to help smooth its interactions with travelers.
Richards, who is black, and many others who have sued Customs have alleged they were targeted because of their race. Sixty percent of those pulled aside last year for body searches or X-rays were black or Hispanic, Customs figures show. Thirty-three percent of Hispanics who were searched were found to have drugs compared with 31 percent of blacks and 26 percent of whites.
Kelly said race isn't a factor. "There are higher risk countries and higher risk flights," he said. "Those flights may be more populated by a particular ethnic group."
Last year, the Customs Service seized 858 pounds of cocaine and 803 pounds of heroin attached to or inside international air travelers' bodies, officials said. More than 70 percent of the heroin seized at airports was smuggled that way.
Customs officials note that fewer than 2 percent of the 68 million fliers who pass through Customs each year have their luggage opened. Far fewer -- about 49,000 people -- are personally searched, usually with a pat down.
The 1,772 strip searches last year ranged from people told to remove their socks to passengers like Richards who were ordered to take off their underwear and bend over. Strip searches are performed by officers of the same gender.
The Customs review found only 19 passengers who were subjected to pelvic or rectal exams by doctors while inspectors watched -- although lawsuits suggest there were more. Drugs were found in 12 of those cases.
Congress and courts have given Customs broad authority to search for drugs, weapons and other illegal imports.
The Supreme Court ruled that Customs officers at airports and border crossings don't need the probable cause or warrants that police need to search possessions. Customs officers can perform a strip search based on "reasonable suspicion" that someone might be hiding something illegal.
A Customs handbook obtained by The Associated Press advises officers that reasonable suspicion usually requires a combination of factors, including someone who appears nervous, wears baggy clothing, gives vague or contradictory answers about travel plans, acts unusually polite or argumentative, wears sunglasses or acts sick. Race isn't cited.
Inspectors say they keep detainees from making calls so that drug associates aren't tipped off. Handcuffs are used to protect the officers. Generally, if someone is held for eight hours or more, a federal prosecutor is notified.
Richards is among more than 80 black females who filed a class-action lawsuit claiming they were singled out for strip searches at O'Hare because of race and gender.
The plaintiffs include a 15-year-old girl, a mentally retarded woman and a woman who uses a wheelchair. Many decided to sue after seeing news reports on Chicago's WMAQ-TV about strip searches of black women.
The agency is exploring alternatives to strip searches. In a test at Miami and New York airports, some passengers selected for strip searches are given the option of having an X-ray instead. The service is also studying new imaging technology that shows things hidden under people's clothes.