An Asian woman who lives in Georgia is alleging that federal agents detained her for more than an hour because they mistook her for a human trafficking victim.
Local NBC affiliate 11 Alive reports that Atlanta metro area resident Stephanie Ung says she and her friend were both departing a Delta flight back from Cancun when they were stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers who detained and questioned them for over an hour.
Ung explained to them that she was just trying to get home to see her family, but they didn't buy her story.
"I just kept telling them that I wanted to go home for my family Thanksgiving dinner, and that they were making me late, but they just didn't care," she said. "They just laughed."
Ung speculates that the only reason they could have stopped her is that they believed she was a human trafficking victim, as many such victims are of Asian descent.
"I know human trafficking is huge within the Asian community, right, and that's the only reason why I could see you stopping me," she said. "That and the fact that I was in a dress. I was in a dress with some cardigans and boots, and I think that's totally appropriate to fly on an airplane with."
In response to the story, Delta said that its employees were alerted to the possibility that Ung and her friend might be human trafficking victims by another passenger, on account of the fact that they supposedly weren't in possession of their passports. Ung, however, says she and her friend both had possession of their passports the entire time.
Watch 11 Alive's report on the incident below.
