Amir Makled thought he was being racially profiled. A Lebanese American who was born and raised in Detroit, the attorney was returning home from a family vacation in the Dominican Republic when he said an immigration official at the Detroit Metro airport asked for a “TTRT” agent after scanning his passport on Sunday. Makled said the expression on the agent’s face changed. He felt something “odd” was happening.
“So I Googled what TTRT meant. I didn’t know,” Makled said. “And what I found out was it meant Tactical Terrorism Response Team. So immediately I knew they’re gonna take me in for questioning. And that’s when I felt like I was being racially profiled or targeted because I am Arab.”
But it quickly became apparent, Makled said, that the stop was different from the type of so-called random stop Muslims and Arab-Americans have become accustomed to at US airports. The plainclothes immigration officer said he knew who Makled was and what he did for a living, according to the lawyer; agents wanted to search his phone.
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