Travel is a hassle for an eight-year-old Cub Scout from New Jersey.
Travel is a hassle for an eight-year-old Cub Scout from New Jersey.
That's because Mikey Hicks (pictured) shares the same name of a person who has drawn the suspicion of the US Homeland Security Department.
His mother Najlah said she sensed trouble when her son was a baby and she couldn't get a seat for him at a Florida airport.
She says airline officials explained his name "was on the list." The boy's name appears to be among 13,500 on the "selectee" list, which sets off a high level of security screening.
He was patted down as a two-year-old at Newark Liberty International Airport, and continues to face extra scrutiny from security every time he flies.
After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport ticket counter, this year's vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the family.
Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the way home.
"Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch someone is patting your eight-year-old down like he's a criminal," recalled Najlah. "A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don't catch him.
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But my eight-year-old can't walk through security without being frisked."
Transportation Security Administration spokesman James Fotenos says in the coming months, the agency will cross-check names with birth dates and gender.
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