"My Mexican Husband Accused of Trafficking Our Daughter on flight"

[mainer]

Driving over the George Washington Bridge to pick up my husband and daughter at Newark Airport after a week’s vacation in Cancun, México to visit his family, I received a call from an official from Port Authority. This person identified himself as a sergeant and proceeded to tell me that there was an ‘incident’ on the plane that involved my husband and daughter. My heart was in my throat ― I couldn’t even bring myself to respond because my mind was racing to grasp all of the possibilities of what could have happened on the plane. My biggest fear: were they hurt? The sergeant assured me that they were both fine, but I was already in shock, and it felt as if my whole world was closing in on me.

My husband is Mexican. I am of Irish descent. Our daughter, three years old, looks like both of us: she has dark hair and almond eyes with white skin. They had traveled to Mexico to spend time with his mother, her grandmother, who they see but once a year. This was precious time, time for my daughter to connect with her father’s side of the family, and I embraced them going, while I stayed home because of work. I had never imagined what would happen upon their return.

The “incident”: another passenger on the plane, who was obviously inebriated, accused my husband of child trafficking. She claimed that my fair-skinned daughter didn’t look like her Mexican father, and stoked suspicion that he had kidnapped her. This passenger had no basis for this claim, nor any evidence to back it up.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/my-mexican-husband-was-accused-of-trafficking-our-daughter_us_58f4adade4b01566972250cf?k3f

[Demsrule86]

1. I saw this on Huff...horrible.

United should be ashamed.

[exboyfil]

5. Not the individual who made the false report?

That appears to be slander to me. Once it is reported is the airline the appropriate agent to investigate the charges. Do they ignore the charges based upon the airline's understanding of the actual situation. What if they are wrong?

How the charges were investigated was the abuse. I think we all want accusations of child abuse to be taken seriously.

[Demit]

10. I read the story. The charge was that the child didn't look like her father.

United Airlines took that charge seriously. That's the outrage.

Edited to add: It was a return flight. It would be very unusual for a child trafficker to fly a supposed kidnapped child OUT of a country only to fly her back IN again. Good grief.

[Demsrule86]

15. I think United behaved horribly.

[VigilantG]

2. Maybe United Airlines is Trump's fleet

UA sure seem to be acting like many of his supporters since throughout the campaign!
There is way too much misplaced hate and fear in our world right now. With no thanks to Repugs and the selfish ultra-wealthy.

[gopiscrap]

3. that drunk motherfucker needs to get sued into poverty

only then when these asshole racists lose everything will they think twice about spreading their hate, fear and intolerant shit on others

[dhill926]

8. what you said....

[busterbrown]

4. Obviously Part of Pizzagate..

When will this nonsense end.?

[DFW]

6. United AGAIN

CBP uses ANY pretext to throw their weight around. We saw this first hand the last two times we landed at Atlanta (my wife is a German citizen who doesn't claim--or even want--a U.S. residence). Last December, she was detained due to a "fingerprint mismatch," even though she showed them the same fingers she had on her hand the last 100 times she entered the USA.

But what was United thinking to let the "suspicions (translation into English: troublemaking)" of a drunk passenger take precedence over an obviously normal parent and child traveling together? It sounds like "not beating seated passengers half to death" isn't the only new passenger protocol United needs to implement.

United needs to fire its whole management from top to bottom and let another company like Virgin America take it over.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. I had all sorts of drama travelling internationally with my grandparents as a child

Somewhere along the way and incomprehensibly it was decided it was less suspicious if I went through immigration by myself. I don't know if there was some moral panic about international child abduction going on at the time or not but it was genuinely bizarre that there was a barrage of questions traveling with my grandparents but remarkably few when I could barely see over the immigration officer's desk.

[Liberal In Texas]

9. Racism in this country is out of hand.

And United needs to get it's act together immediately. And geeze, they had a passport, green card and a notarized letter!

[HockeyMom]

11. This woman has never seen a Bi-Racial Child

with blue eyes, blonde hair, and mocha skinned? Maybe these kids should never travel with their African American parent either? Maybe she is a bigot who does not like mixing ethnicity's and races?

Absolutely children can be a combination of their Mom and Dad.

[sarisataka]

13. I wonder what these people

Would do if they came across my cousins in law. The daughter is in her mid twenties now and as blonde hair blue eyed as you can get. She is also over 80% Lakota and regularly dances in a Jingle Dress at pow wow.

Her parents oth are obviously native...

[mainer]

12. Stupid paranoid people see bad people everywhere

Remember that unfortunate math professor (of Italian descent) who was doing math equations on a flight and some dumb Barbie passenger ("math is hard!&quot thought of course he must be doing some Islamic terrorist stuff.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy-league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/?utm_term=.58de98d19b5b

[Vogon_Glory]

14. United had better do some sensitivity training pronto

Or they'll wonder why their Latin American routes undergo a forced contraction as one irate Latin American government after another pulls their landing privileges.

I don't think that the suits upstairs have realized that bigotry has a price.