A retired North Carolina police chief says he was detained at John F. Kennedy airport in New York for over an hour.
Hassan Aden posted the story on his Facebook page detailing what happened when the customs officers took him aside.
When he says he asked the officers why he was being held, the officer:
“Explained that my name was used as an alias by someone on some watch list. He stated that he sent my information to another agency to de-conflict and clear me, so that I could gain passage into the United States.... my own country!!!”
Aden was the police chief in Greenville, North Carolina for two years and was with the Alexandria Police Department in Virginia for 25 years.
He now works as a consultant with the Department of Justice and federal courts.
Aden says he supports detaining people, but only under "reasonable" circumstances.
"When you get into an hour, an hour and a half, in any law enforcement situation, that’s unreasonable. The clock is ticking.”
He says that no one is safe from "unlawful government intrusion."
“If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone with attributes that can be ‘profiled'."
The former chief says he was finally let go after an officer wondered why he was detained and worked with the other agency to clear him.
Aden says the detention left him feeling like his freedoms were stripped.
“This country now feels cold, unwelcoming, and in the beginning stages of a country that is isolating itself from the rest of the world – and its own people – in an unprecedented fashion. High levels of hate and injustice have been felt in vulnerable communities for decades – it is now hitting the rest of America.”