Muslims Profiled At Newark Airport Felt Like 'Animals': Group

NEWARK, NJ — They felt like “animals in a zoo.” That’s how a group of 14 Muslim women in New Jersey are describing an encounter at Newark Liberty International Airport, during which they were allegedly profiled and subjected to a humiliating search in front of other passengers.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations of New Jersey (CAIR), which is representing the women, filed a letter of complaint last month with the TSA and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The women are asking for $100,000 in damages each, an official apology and mandatory diversity training for all TSA agents working at Newark Airport.

The incident took place in December 2017, the women allege.

The women said in their complaint that many of them hadn’t met before the incident, which took place as they waited to board a flight to Chicago. But TSA agents allegedly pulled them off the security line and put them through a degrading, unjustified search while other passengers laughed and took video with their phones, NorthJersey.com reported.

All of the women – who were headed to an annual conference of the Islamic Circle of North America – were wearing a hijab, or Islamic head scarf. They boarded a later flight and missed a half-day of the three-day event, NorthJersey.com stated.

“It was horrible,” Meriem Bendaoud of Bayonne told the publication.

Bendaoud, who was traveling with her two, 19-year-old daughters at the time, said that the encounter was “disgusting.”

“We were cornered, all of us,” she told NorthJersey.com.

NJ.com posted text from CAIR’s complaint letter to federal authorities:

“Suddenly and without warning, the TSA agents closed the doors behind the clients… With the door closed behind them, the clients were now all trapped in what can only be described as a ‘cage.’ The cage had clear glass windows around all sides. What happened inside the cage was viewable by every other passenger entering security. The clients noticed, with great humiliation and consternation that other passengers were pointing, laughing and taking videos of them. Like animals in a zoo.”

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File Photo: Shutterstock / Passengers going to a secure gate hold area with special security at the Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) in New Jersey, July 2016 (EQRoy)

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