Elected officials, family of woman detained at O’Hare call for transparency
By Marissa Sulek
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Illinois (WBBM) — Elected officials on Sunday are calling for transparency and accountability from the federal government after they said a U.S. citizen from Skokie, Illinois, was detained at O’Hare Airport.
Sunny Naqvi, 28, was on a work trip with five other employees and just returned from Turkey to O’Hare. They said when they got off their flight, all six of them were detained by federal agents and held at the airport for 30 hours before being brought here to the Broadview detention center.
Dozens of people showed up outside the Broadview detention facility on Friday night, pleading with law enforcement and federal agents to release Naqvi.
At a press conference on Sunday, elected officials said she was detained with her coworkers on Thursday at O’Hare.
“I spoke with her around 1:30 on Friday, and then her phone started pinging right behind me at the Broadview detention facility,” said Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison.
Morrison is also a family friend and said Naqvi was born in Evanston and went to college at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
“It is our belief that during that time, they began moving the six individuals from Broadview to an immigration facility in Wisconsin,” he said.
They tracked her location from Broadview across state lines to Dodge County, Wisconsin, where she and her coworkers were released on Saturday.
“They just let her out the door. She ended up having to hitchhike to find safe refuge and a location,” Morrison said.
He said the six coworkers were heading to India six weeks ago for the work trip, but they were not all allowed to board the flight. He added that all of them were of Pakistani descent. Three of them were U.S. citizens, and the other three had green cards.
Naqvi traveled to Bulgaria and Austria instead, and it’s when they returned that they were detained.
“All she was told was there was curious travel history, but they had no cause to detain her for those 30 hours,” Morrison said.
“Her first shower was actually today, and she was able to eat some food,” said Naqvi’s sister, Sarah Afzul.
As for Naqvi, her sister said the last few days have taken a toll on her, and she was not ready to tell her story at Sunday’s press conference.
Naqvi’s attorney and elected officials said they have not filed a lawsuit yet, but are considering legal action.
Her family says Naqvi did not get her passport back. CBS News Chicago reached out to the Department of Homeland Security about this and is waiting to hear back.
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