Comedian actors Eric Andre and Clayton English filed a lawsuit against the police, alleging racial profiling at Atlanta's main airport in a program supposedly aimed at finding illegal drugs but officers regularly seize passengers' money.

Andre, creator and host of The Eric Andre Show, and English, comedian and backup actor, say that in separate incidents, Clayton County police officers at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport racially profiled and illegally stopped them to question whether they had illegal drugs.

A federal lawsuit filed on Tuesday alleges that the police searches, described by Clayton County police as consensual, rely on coercion and are conducted on a racial basis.

The lawsuit stated that more than half of the passengers – 56% – were Black, and 68% were people of color. The comedians' lawyers also argue that the search program rarely finds drugs, but regularly seizes money: over a million dollars, and money is rarely returned even if the passenger is not charged, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Of the 402 stops made, drugs were found a total of three times, totaling 0.08 pounds.

The Washington Post reported that six pills were taken from a passenger who had no prescription. Andre says he arrived in April 2021 at Hartsfield-Jackson from Los Angeles. While waiting on the jet bridge, he said police officers stopped him in the narrow space and questioned him about drugs.

Andre told the paper, "There are all these people forced to squeeze past us on this narrow, confusing jet bridge because I look like such a suspicious offender." "And I didn't do anything wrong at all.

I'm literally coming back home from a business trip." He said he was later deplaned, but described the police encounter as "disappointingly frustrating, dehumanizing, racist, and painful."

In October 2020, English said he had a similar encounter with police while traveling through Atlanta on a business trip to Los Angeles.

Police stopped him entering the jet bridge, asked if he was carrying illegal drugs and checked his boarding pass and ID. He said they requested to search his bag, a decision he agreed to because he did not realize he had the option to refuse.

"I felt completely helpless. I felt violated," he said at a press conference discussing the lawsuit. "I felt I had to comply if I wanted everything to go smoothly.

"The two are seeking a jury trial and hope the judge will declare the search program unconstitutional, according to the Associated Press. I have the resources to draw national attention and international interest to this incident.

Andre said, "This is not an isolated incident." "If Black people don't speak out about each other, then who will?"

Edited by: Yusra Bamtaraf