“Miss, you can’t come through; I need you to step aside.”
These are the words nearly every traveler dreads hearing from the TSA agents as they enter through the airport. These are the words I was met with at Newark Liberty International Airport on my last flight—my first since middle school and third overall—after I stepped into the Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) passenger screening system. The machine was immediately set off by my body, and unlike they had when earlier and later passengers set off the machine, the four TSA agents—two men and two women—immediately turned their backs to me, whispering to each other.
“Step over there,” they eventually ordered me.
The taller of the two women pointed to a distant corner, where the agents couldn’t even see me. I was given no cause, no reason for this segregation, where I was put out of sight, likely to be searched without any known cause. Embarrassed, I agreed.
Twenty minutes later, my traveling companion had worn down the TSA agents enough that the two female agents, who had been at the gate the whole time, finally called me over to them; I had previously tried to step into their line of sight, to catch their attention, to remind them that I was still there, waiting, however, the taller female agent simply said: “wait”. Meanwhile, my traveling companion had already received information regarding my status. I had no idea what had happened, and after watching other passengers being pat down on their arms and legs and back, I assumed that I would be asked to remove my clothes and cavity searched, without knowing why, until the TSA agent turned to me, informing me that I would be pat down, “because of the arm.”
As a left transradial amputee, I am one of 61 million disabled adults in the United States. My limb difference impacts the way I interact with the world, and how the world sees me. On this day at EWR, my disability meant that the AIT machine would not even register me as human.
Because the machine did not recognize my humanity, I was forced to wait barefooted for thirty minutes more than any other person in line at the airport, in fear without information, while dozens of other people and a cat passed through the security line. The cat, for the record, had an agent rub an explosives test on its head for two seconds and was immediately cleared. Had I been a cat, I could have passed through airport security faster. I may have also been allowed to sit, which would have reduced the queasy, light-headed feeling that made me want to pass out.
Travelers with disabilities deserve to be treated with the same dignity and respect as all other travelers. This includes being checked in a timely manner and being given access to information regarding our own bodies. These are not the only issues people with disabilities face while flying: passengers in wheelchairs are required to give up their mobility devices while travelling and often find them damaged upon return, some even dying because of damage to their assistive devices. Others find that proposed limits to service animals on aircraft restrict their ability to travel independently. Other modes of transportation, such as driving, have their own unique challenges, such as accessible parking abuse.
Ableism, or disability discrimination, is baked into the everyday lives of people with disabilities. Disabled Americans can legally be paid less than minimum wage, sterilized against our will, and segregated into “special” education classrooms.
Despite ableism being legal in certain situations, it is imperative that we as a society take action to treat all people equitably. Had a Muslim man or a Mexican woman been treated as I had, the TSA agents would likely have recognized the treatment I faced at airport security as discrimination. However, American society has so normalized disability discrimination that when I mentioned my experience to my fellow visibly disabled adults, my story was simply one of many, an expectation of traveling by plane. Instead, it was my able-bodied friends and relatives who were outraged at my treatment, recognizing that they would never be treated this way. From my fellow adults with limb differences, I heard a wide range of stories, from experiences like mine to simply being waved past the machine, with agents who didn’t even bother to check them because of their disability. Being allowed to bypass the machine is just as alarming as being over-searched because of it.
My return flight did not involve a total body search when my nonexistent left forearm was flagged by the AIT screening system. Instead, I was given a brief and immediate pat-down of my back when my necklace clasp was flagged by the machine. I cried when the Fourth Amendment-friendly search was over, and even hugged the kind TSA agent who performed it. She assured me that there was no reason to check for something—a flagged forearm—that wasn’t there. I only wish the TSA agents at Newark Airport agreed.
TSA must, in conjunction with disability rights activists, develop a set of clear and well-defined procedures surrounding disabled passengers at airport checkpoints. These procedures must be in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Air Carrier Access Act, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. They must be followed in all American airports and clearly posted both in the airport and online, so that passengers with disabilities may have access to information regarding their screening procedures, making them reasonable under the Fourth Amendment. If that procedure involves a full pat-down of people like me at all airports, I will accept that procedure. As a native New Yorker living in a post-9/11 world, I highly value air security and the work that TSA does to keep our nation safe. However, this information must be made known to the passenger in a timely fashion, preferably made known to the individuals before their traveling companions, and the procedure, whatever it is, must take place without unnecessary delays—if the two female agents at the station where I entered were able to perform the pat-down while the men continued to operate the machine, I know of no reason why they made me wait, rather than patting me down immediately. Not giving people with disabilities access to information pertaining to themselves, speaking to their companions before the person in question, and segregating them from other passengers including their travel companions is entirely unacceptable.
For people with disabilities, the sky should not be limited, but a place of liberty and access for all.
– Julia Betancourt (@julesbeta on Instagram)
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