The inhumane futility of border policing

On September 22, as I descended from the ferry into the bustling port of Lesbos, Greece, I was stopped by a police officer. “Don’t worry, it’s just a security check,” he said, gesturing for me to follow him, and insisting my friend come too. We were directed to a beige trailer at the end of the port, where I, an Arab woman, along with my white German friend, joined an Afghan man and a Black man. The belongings of the latter were strewn across the table, as the officer interrogated him about each card in his billfold – his residency card identified him as an asylum seeker. The officer then patted him down aggressively, grabbing at each of his legs.

A woman officer rifled through my belongings, opening each lipstick and each zipper, as a male officer, holding my American passport, asked me several times whether I was a reporter. “For the third time, I am an American university professor,” I said. He stepped up to me aggressively saying, “no one cares what you do”.

Racial profiling at the southern border of the European Union was clearly rife.