A 25 year old teacher from Wales was in a shocking situation last week. On February 16th, Juhel Miah was returning from Reykjavik, Iceland, with some of his students. He had boarded a flight to New York, when some security notified him he was not welcome to fly.
Miah was promptly escorted off the plane by US Homeland Security personnel, without a clear explanation. He described the situation as simply “demoralizing”, and is still trying to get answers to why he was kicked off the flight.
“Everyone looked at me like I’d done something wrong.” said Miah on the subject. “It made me feel really small, even though it shouldn’t have.”
The teacher reportedly asked many times for a reason, but was not given one. To make matters worse, he was also denied from entering the United States Embassy, located in Reykjavik.
Interestingly enough, Juhel Miah is of Bangladeshi descent, and has a valid British passport. He is not from, nor has he ever been to any of the seven Muslim countries included in President Donald Trump’s executive order. Furthermore, this executive order has currently been blocked by a US federal judge. Either way, the attempted US Muslim ban and the recent changes on immigration should not have affected Miah.
What do you think? Was xenophobia at play here?
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