A Retired Police Chief Is Detained At United States Airport For One Reason: His Name is Hassan

A Retired Police Chief Is Detained At United States Airport For One Reason: His Name is Hassan

Many things have been called: the head, the deputy chief, officer, husband, son, father, immigrants, Americans.

But none of those titles mattered when Hassan Aden landed on American soil earlier this month in Trump America. The only thing that mattered was that his name is Hassan. And that, apparently, was enough for the United States Customs and Border Protection officials to question the rest of Aden's life.

Aden, 52, is a retired Greenville, North Carolina, police chief and a former deputy chief with police in Alexandria in Virginia.

So why was a permanent police officer detained for an hour and a half at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on his return from a trip to Paris? Was she being profiled because of her Muslim-sounding name?

Hassan is an immigrant, the child born in Italy, with the Italian father and Somali mother. He lived in this country for 42 years and is a naturalized citizen of the United States. Has an American passport and TSA pre-check. E 'was out of dozens of countries at times without incident. Not this time.

"This experience has left me feeling vulnerable and unsure of the future of a country that once was a great pride and my call," Aden wrote in an extensive post on Facebook describing the disconcerting detention. "This experience makes me wonder if this is really like home."

A spokesman for the Office of Customs and Border Protection has denied that agents were involved in profiling. In an email to my colleague Publish Faiz Siddiqui, the race and ethnicity bar agency was told to be considered in the projection "in all but the most exceptional circumstances."

So, what was exceptional to a retired police officer to go home to celebrate his mother's 80th birthday? One thing: your first name.

Aden was treated shamefully. America, who stops the head of Aden, closes it in a room and the judges who is an America full of fear and ignorance, is not "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

You mean this is terrorism?

Give. US. A pause.

This guy is a cop. He knows what happens.

"Before this administration, I often participated in meetings in the White House and warned of reform of national police policies - all this to say that if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone with attributes that can Be 'profiles' "wrote Aden. "No one is safe from this kind of illegal government intrusion."

An agent told him that "my name has been used as an alias by someone on a checklist. He indicated that he sent my data to another de-conflict agency and made it clear to me, so he can get the transition in the United States ... my country !!! "

After an hour, another officer saw the situation, pounced, pressed for status updates, canceled the half hour and apologized. He understood what was happening.

Something very similar happened twice in a month of Muhammad Ali Jr., son of the former world champion.  recently, he was detained at united states Reagan National Airport on March 10, Chris Mancini, his lawyer, said Ali was trying to board a JetBlue flight when security officials refused his identification and repeatedly asked where he was from.

There is no mention of a checklist. One name was all they had to go forward. (And that name, Duh.)

The last irony: Ali and his mother had come to Washington to push for an end to racial discrimination.

If names are now the yardstick used to keep the United States safe, let's get things right and take a good look at other names that have terrified our country.

James. Men named Santiago set the standard for homegrown terrorism filming in the United States.

We can start with James Earl Ray, the man who killed Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. One of the fathers of the modern mass American gunfire James Oliver Huberty, who killed 21 people at a McDonalds in San Ysidro, California, 1984.

Never heard the term "Going Postal"? You guessed it - a trend presented to you by James. In 1983, postal employee disgruntled James Brooks launched the postmaster and injured his supervisor in Anniston, Alabama, post office, where he worked.

The former employee with a shot work? Oh yes, James Simpson killed five employees, including the boss, in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1995.

And, of course, it's James Holmes, who in 2012 threw audiences in a dark movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, killing 12 people.

Wow. Maybe we can only keep America safe if we stop James. Each one of them.

Do not?

So maybe someone will stop just because his name sounds suspicious is not legal, moral or even America. Yes, that's what