A British Muslim family heading for Disneyland was barred from boarding a flight to Los Angeles by US authorities at London’s Gatwick airport amid concerns of an American overreaction to the perceived terrorist threat.
US Department of Homeland Security officials provided no explanation for why the country refused to allow the family of 11 to board the plane even though they had been granted travel authorization online ahead of their planned 15 December flight.
[...]
[Mohammad Tariq Mahmood] said the children had been counting down the days to the trip for months, and were devastated not to be able to visit their cousins as planned.
He said that the airline told them that they would not be refunded the $13,340 cost of their flights. They were also forced to return everything they bought at the airport’s duty-free shops before being escorted from the airport.
“I have never been more embarrassed in my life. I work here, I have a business here. But we were alienated,” Mahmood said.
[...]
The case [...] has been raised by the British Labour MP Stella Creasy, who believes a lack of information from US authorities is fuelling resentment within British Muslim communities.
“Online and offline discussions reverberate with the growing fear UK Muslims are being ‘trumped’ – that widespread condemnation of Donald Trump’s call for no Muslim to be allowed into America contrasts with what is going on in practice,” Creasy writes in an article for the Guardian.
[...]
Two days after the family was stopped from boarding their flight, another British traveller, Ajmal Masroor, an imam and lecturer based in London, was turned away from boarding a flight to New York.
“USA has the right to issue and revoke visa – I fully understand that,” Masroor wrote in a Facebook post. “However not forwarding any reasons infuriates ordinary people. It does not win the hearts and minds of people, it turns them off. I am amazed how irrational these processes are but does USA care about what you and I think? I don’t think so!”
Guardian
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.
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