My 14 yo Korean daughter Flora was searched at PDX Airport last spring. She had some food in her carry on so they said they had to open the bag and check it which was fine. They checked the bag but said that we couldn’t keep the food, which was annoying but kind of expected. Then the TSA agent said she needed to go into the full body scanner. This was fine, and everything was going well until the agent said the machine had some suspicious spots showing up near her groin and legs. The agent said she thought it was the nylon leggings she was wearing but they would have to pat her down to make sure. The agent said they would pat her down right away but it took almost 20 minutes to get a female agent to initiate the pat down. Needless to say we were both getting pretty aggravated at this point. They wanted her to remove her leggings and socks for the search so they took her to a back room to pat her down. Of course, typical TSA wouldn’t let me come in to the room where they were searching her but Flora said that they made her take off her shirt as well as her leggings and socks. They also made her stand on her tip toes and stretch her arms in the air for an extended period of time. Also, to make matters worse, when we were finally done with that nightmare, the TSA agent confirmed that it was just the leggings that were causing the machine to go off. Long story short, she had to be nearly strip searched all because of the clothes she was wearing.
By: Flora