Faisal and Nazia Ali were on a Cincinnati-bound Delta flight from Paris, after celebrating their ten-year anniversary trip to London and Paris. The trip was soon going to turn into a nightmare.

According to the USA Today,

A flight crew member had complained to the pilot that she was uncomfortable with the Muslim couple in the second row of economy class. The woman was wearing a headscarf and using a phone, and the man was sweating, she allegedly told the pilot... The pilot contacted the ground crew. He would not take off until couple was removed... The flight attendant claimed that Faisal Ali tried to hide his cell phone and that she had heard the couple use the word "Allah.”

After waiting 45 minutes in the plane, the couple was forcefully removed and told to take with them all of their personal belongings from the flight. After being extensively questioned, the couple was ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing and were put on a plane the next day.

"It was humiliating. We were treated like criminals," she said. "I thought, `We are American citizens. You can't do this to us.'

The couple, along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is filing a religious profiling complaint against Delta to the US Department of Transportation. The complaint asked, amongst other things "to conduct a thorough examination into the prevailing practices of major American air carriers, including Delta Air Lines, and to develop policy guidelines on the objective factors that are to be considered when determining that a passenger may legally be removed from a flight."

Delta promptly issued a response: “ Delta condemns discrimination toward our customers in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation or gender. As a global airline that brings hundreds of thousands of people together every day, Delta is deeply committed to treating all of our customers with respect. Delta continues its investigation into this matter and will issue a full refund of these customers’ airfare."

Not been a great day for the Ali family or Delta...