Sikh Turbans and Airports: Why Can't They Get Along? Krithika Varagur - The Huffington Post
go to original March 8, 2016

Remove my Turban at the Airport? (JusReign)

Last month, two high profile Sikh men were detained at airports and told to remove their turbans for "security" inspections: actor, model, and designer Waris Ahluwalia in Mexico City, and Canadian comedian Jasmeet Singh, known as JusReign, in San Francisco. The incidents returned the issue of Sikh discrimination at airports to the spotlight.

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration passed regulations back in 2007 that allow Sikh men to keep their turbans on at airports, but this is not always enforced -- not just abroad, as was the case with Ahluwalia, but even in the continental U.S., as with JusReign, who complied with a removal request.

"For Sikh-Americans, humiliation is a prerequisite for air travel," Arjun Sethi, a policy director at the New York-based civil rights group Sikh Coalition, told the Huffington Post. "Asking people to remove their turbans doesn’t just cause inconvenience and frustration -- its humiliating, dehumanizing, and stigmatizes Sikh-Americans."

One issue with JusReign's and Ahluwalia's detainments is that Sikh-Americans say they already put up with a baseline level of extra scrutiny for any air travel. Sethi alleges the TSA so often subjects people in turbans to secondary security screenings that it adds up to a "blanket policy," and Ahluwalia pointed out in an interview with HuffPost Live that his boarding pass was printed with "SSSS" - the customary designation that a passenger will require additional security screening. That designation isn't applied by security agency officials present at the airport, but by airlines, meaning there can be multiple layers of extra scrutiny.

"The SSSS designation has nothing to do with someone’s outward appearance or apparel," said TSA spokesman Mike England. "It is given to travelers via the Secure Flight system. Any passenger that produces an alarm during the screening process is subject to secondary screening."

Read the rest at The Huffington Post

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