Women Suing Over “Horrifying” Airport Searches

The 34-year-old Tameika Lovell was returning from a quick jaunt to Jamaica in 2016 when Customs and Border Patrol officers allegedly took her into a secure airport room, squeezed her breasts, searched her vagina with “four gloved fingers,” and had Lovell part her buttocks “for viewing.”

Now Lovell, who is black, has filed a lawsuit claiming the CBP violated her constitutional rights and ignored agency rules about invasive body searches, the Washington Post reports.

Her experience is one of about a dozen the Center for Public Integrity has examined over the past few years (including a particularly scary one)—all brought by women, including two minors, who say the CBP conducted demeaning body searches but found no contraband.

Lovell’s case is pending, but six of the lawsuits were settled for $1.2 million and one lost in a courtroom. At issue are CBP rules, which allow federal border officers to make people disrobe for rectal or genital searches and give observed bowel movements as drug checks, all without a warrant.

The agency handbook, however, requires officers to note a substantial justification for each step and respect people’s dignity. Other issues include race—each case highlighted by the Post involves a woman of color—and possible pressure exerted by President Trump’s administration on border officers, per the Washington Examiner.

It all amounts to a daunting legal battle for Lovell:

“Even though you are the victim there’s always that shadow of a doubt that people have about you.”

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Edited via Newser.