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.
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