FORT LAUDERDALE, FL — One day after testifying before members of Congress about his experience with racial and religious profiling, Muhammad Ali Jr. — the son and namesake of "The Greatest," Muhammad Ali — was "detained" for a time from boarding a JetBlue flight at a second airport.

"On way home on DOMESTIC FLIGHT Muhammad Ali Jr. detained AGAIN by @DHSgov ," she tweeted. "Religiously profiling son of 'The Greatest' will not make us safe."

David Lapan, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security took issue with the congresswoman's characterization of Friday's incident.

Spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein of the Transportation Security Administration, which is part of Homeland Security, acknowledged that Ali was held up at the ticket counter and subsequently patted down when he passed through the screening checkpoint.

"Upon arriving at the airline check-in counter, a call was made to confirm Mr. Ali's identity with TSA officials," she said. "When Mr. Ali arrived at the checkpoint, his large jewelry alarmed the checkpoint scanner. He received a targeted pat-down in the area of his jewelry to clear the alarm and was cleared to catch his flight."

Ali family friend and former federal prosecutor Chris J. Mancini told Patch that he accompanied Ali and Ali's mother on JetBlue Flight 79, which departed Reagan National Airport at 1:24 p.m. and arrived in Fort Lauderdale at 4:07 p.m. on Friday afternoon.

"We were trying to leave Reagan to return to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport," Mancini told Patch. "The ticket agent said 'I've got to call somebody' He wouldn't elaborate. He wouldn't explain."

Mancini said Ali's Illinois-issued identification card was refused even though he had flown with it to Thursday's event and on at least one other flight since the initial Feb. 7 incident in Fort Lauderdale.

"He had gotten a flag when he put Muhammad's name into the computer," Mancini said of the JetBlue ticket agent at Reagan.

Mancini said Ali was asked to verify his place of birth, date of birth and Social Security number along with at least one other question.

"In the end, in order to fly we produced voluntarily his passport," according to Mancini. "How come the day after he testifies in the capital now all of a sudden his ID is no good?"

Ali was detained for about two hours at the customs area of the Fort Lauderdale International Airport during the February incident as he and his mother, Khalilah Ali — the boxer's second wife — attempted to reenter the United States after landing on a Spirit Airlines flight from Jamaica.



"He did what everybody does. He just presented himself and his passport for clearance into the country," Mancini said in an earlier interview with Patch.

"It was at this point where this officer looked at his name, saw that it was an Arabic name and asked him what his date of birth was, where he was born and then asked him if he was a Muslim," Mancini added. "When he said 'yes,' the officer took out some type of a form, stamped it and told him to go into secondary inspection which he did. There was no discussion with that officer about was he Muhammad Ali's son? Was he a red-blooded American? Nothing. As soon as he heard he was a Muslim, off he went to secondary inspection."

The city of Miami Beach honored Ali in November by co-naming Convention Center Drive as Muhammad Ali Way. The champion passed away on June 3, 2016 following a lengthy battle with Parkinson's disease.

It was at the Miami Beach Convention Center in 1964 — as the Vietnam powder keg smoldered and President Johnson campaigned for the White House against Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater — that the brash 22-year-old overcame seven-to-one odds to best the all-but-invincible Sonny Liston in what would become known as the "upset of the decade."

Ali won his Miami Beach fight by a technical knockout at the opening of the seventh round when Liston gave up after being dominated in the sixth. Ali's contribution to civil rights and his legendary athletic accomplishments made him an iconic role model in the African-American community as well as an American sports legend.

The 44-year-old Ali Jr. believes he was detained in the first incident primarily because of his Muslim faith but "he also thinks it was because he was black," according to Mancini, who added that Ali and his mother are both residents of nearby Deerfield Beach, Fla.

The champ shows off for his newborn son with wife, Khalilah Ali. Photo courtesy of the Ali family.