Father Says UA Falsely Accused Him of Trafficking His Own Daughter

The flyer claims he was singled out after a fellow passenger decided that his three-year-old daughter “did not look like him.”

A father and daughter returning home from visiting relatives in Mexico were put in the uncomfortable position of proving they were related after United Airlines workers allegedly related another passenger’s baseless claims to authorities. The accusing passenger on the flight from Cancún International Airport (CUN) to Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) reportedly based her assertion on the fact that the half-Mexican three-year-old girl had a lighter skin complexion than her father.

Maura Furfey, who was not on the flight, wrote about her husband and young daughter’s experience for the Huffington Post. The high school Spanish teacher, who had remained in the US on this trip, was on her way to greet her family at the airport when she learned that her husband and daughter had been removed from the flight by police and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents upon landing.

“Recalling the details now, I still struggle to believe them,” Furfey wrote in her account. “After our 3-year-old snoozed on her father’s lap for most of the flight, the plane landed. He texted me to tell me they had arrived. When the plane taxied to the gate, however, a number of officers from the Port Authority and Customs and Border Patrol boarded the plane, approached my husband and instructed him to grab his carry-ons and follow them. He and our daughter were escorted out of the plane before anyone else could get off.”

According to Furfey, authorities were not convinced that her husband was the little girl’s father until they spoke to her. Furfey, who is from the US and of Irish descent, described their daughter as a little girl who “looks like both of us: she has dark hair and almond eyes with white skin.” She characterized the incident as being based on nothing more than a “racially charged” accusation that could have been debunked with a simple check of the manifest and documentation the family provided the airline prior to the trip.

CBP officers said that they were simply following protocol and had no choice but to investigate once the crew member alerted them to the suspected case of human trafficking. When the Furfeys called United Airlines to complain about the company’s role in the family’s unfair treatment, the airline eventually offered an apology and a $100.00 travel voucher.

Furfey reports that neither she nor her husband have any plans to put the voucher to use.

[Photo: Shutterstock]