Think Progress reports: A growing number of Muslims, Sikhs, and people of Middle Eastern descent are reporting incidents of racial and religious profiling while trying to board planes, sparking concerns that rising anti-Islam sentiment is sparking a new wave of discrimination at airports.

American Muslims have long encountered difficulties at airports, where security officials have been accused of unfairly profiling, questioning, searching, and detaining passengers simply for “looking” Muslim — including people who are not devotees of Islam, such as Sikhs and Arab Christians. Policies that support such profiling — many enacted in the years immediately following the September 11 attacks (although most have proven largely ineffective at catching terrorists) — remain in place today and have been defended by White House officials, even though Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents have voiced misgivings about programs that single out people based on race or religion.

But as the United States endures an unprecedented wave of anti-Islam hatred following the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino late last year, Muslim Americans and others affected by Islamophobia are reporting a rash of new airport profiling cases — this time not just at the hands of the TSA, but also airline companies and fellow passengers. [Continue reading…]