Three Black Border Patrol Officers File Lawsuit To Expose Racism At Michigan-Canada Border
Three Black Customs and Border Protection officers have reportedly filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court alleging CBP officers often target Black travelers for racial profiling and harassment. They also claim that they themselves are being put into positions where they have to engage in the racist practices at the border crossing between Port Huron, Michigan and Sarnia, Canada.
According to the Detroit Free-Press, of the 275 CBP officers working at that location, only four are Black. The three officers’ suits allege institutional racism has been around for decades at their crossing and is just the latest of its kind. Similar litigation has been filed in Montana, Texas, Ohio, Virginia, Washington and Maine, the Free-Press has found.
Nationally, African Americans account for less than 6 percent of the total CBP workforce with 62 percent of employees being white and another 25 percent Latinx.
The CBP could not provide data on how many minorities versus white travelers were subject to secondary inspections or detainment.
A Michigan ACLU report from March, however, contained the findings from thousands of documents involving Border Patrol arrests CBP released last year after a five-year legal battle.
95 percent of those arrested by Michigan Border Patrol officers spanning the last nine years were people of color with over 13,000 stops made in total.
