From transit workers to corporate staff, a disturbing trend is growing. Everyday employees are using deportation threats as weapons. They use them to win minor customer arguments. It just happened again. Months ago, a Maryland transit worker faced an investigation for threatening to call ICE on a man. Now, a United Airlines employee has sparked fresh outrage with the exact same tactic.
During a ticketing dispute last week at San Francisco International Airport, a man says he was offended and shocked after a United Airlines employee threatened to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on him. The 54-year-old customer, who goes by the name of Julio Varela, was traveling with his family to Montreal on July 14 when he found that his daughter's ticket had her middle and last names mixed up.
This error sent him and his family back and forth between Air Canada and United Airlines counters for over two hours. According to Varela, an Air Canada employee was trying to resolve the issue when they were joined by a United employee.
He told CBS News Bay Area that the incident started when the unidentified United employee was rude and dismissive to him at the ticket counter. When Varela asked for the employee's name to report her, she refused to give it to him. Varela then pulled out his phone and started recording her. The employee later did the same.
In the video of the altercation, which has gone viral since being posted on Reddit, the employee is seen holding up her phone in front of her face as Varela tries to get her name.
According to Varela, the employee said to him, "I already told you. I can't do anything. Whether you fly out or not, I don't care." Varela said that's what triggered him to say to the employee: "You're rude and you're lazy."
Next, the employee can be heard saying, "Maybe we should call ICE on you."
Varela said he was not going to back down after the employee threatened to call ICE, so he told her: "No, call ICE."
Varela, who identified himself as Hispanic and Mexican, said the employee's comment was especially concerning, given recent public attention surrounding ICE actions.
Following the incident, United Airlines issued a statement saying: "We're looking into the interaction in this video," adding that the company doesn't "have anything additional to share at this time."
Varela said a United representative contacted him to get his side of the story. The two sides communicated briefly by email, but Varela said the representative later stopped contacting him. United is yet to provide additional details about the incident. As of the time of this writing, that is.
