Retired Airport Police Chief Detained By Muslim Name

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

A few days ago, former Greenville, North Carolina police chief Hassan Aden was returning from a family vacation in Paris when something he had never experienced before happened to him: He was detained by immigration authorities.

Aden, 52, was detained for about an hour by immigration agents at JFK airport in New York who wanted to verify his file. As he explained in a subsequent post on Facebook, he was told that "it had been used as an alias by a person on a list of terrorists."

The retired police officer was born in Italy to an Italian mother and a Somali father, but has lived in the United States for 42 years, where in addition to heading the Greenville Police Department, he was a chief assistant in Alexandria, Virginia, among other responsibilities he has assumed over the years. throughout his 30-year career.

After being pulled out of line, he was taken to a room with people of other "25 nationalities" and realized that he was being detained.

Aden, returning from celebrating his mother's 80th birthday in Paris, immediately informed officers that he was a U. S. citizen and a former police officer, but they ignored him. It took 90 minutes before he was allowed to leave the room.

That is what has him outraged. "Before this administration," said Aden, who is not a Muslim, "I frequently attended meetings at the White House and gave advice on police policy reforms. What I mean is that if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone with attributes that make him [suspect].”

A spokesman for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement told the Washington Post that the agency does not comment on individual cases, but that in any case its actions are not governed by racial or ethnic constraints. "All arriving travelers can be inspected," he added.