DETROIT — On Tuesday a freelance journalist from Sylvania, Ohio recounted what she calls a life altering experience during a press conference here at the American Civil Liberties Union’s office.  

Shoshana Hebshi, 36, who’s half-Arab, half-Jewish, filed a lawsuit Jan. 22 against Frontier Airlines, Detroit Metro Airport officials, and federal agencies following an incident that occurred on Sep. 11, 2011, when she was removed from an airplane in handcuffs, strip searched, and detained in a cell for hours.  

“I was ordered off the flight at gunpoint  (and) shuffled into the back of a police car into a small cell. I was scared and alone in that dirty cell. I can’t begin to describe the humiliation I faced,” Hebshi said.  

The event unfolded as Hebshi, the mother of two twin boys, was traveling to Detroit Metro-Airport that day after visiting her sister in California. She was seated next to two men of South Asian descent who she didn’t know.  

When the plane landed, armed agents boarded the flight, then Hebshi and the two men were handcuffed, and ordered off the flight at gunpoint. She was taken to a detention facility at the airport, and was placed in a 6 by 10 cell with a metal cot, and a video camera above the open toilet. 

“As officers boarded the plane, we were ordered to put our heads down and put our arms in front of us, I wondered if there was a fugitive on board. I had no idea they were coming for me,” Hebshi, who was born and raised in California, said. 

Although she was crying in the cell, and officers refused to explain the arrest, she was still ordered to strip naked and to squat and cough as an officer looked on. The officer then looked in Hebshi’s mouth, lifted her eyelids, and searched her hair.

She was released after being detained and interrogated for four hours. Throughout the incident she didn’t know when she would be able to call her family, and says before it, she had spoke with her husband and told him she would be home soon. “In my wildest dreams, I would have never imagined being in this situation,” she said.  

The incident began after a few passengers became worried about the two men using the bathroom in succession, and complained to the flight crew, which then reported it to federal agencies noting that Hebshi may have been with them. 

 Eventually, Hebshi and the two men were cleared of any wrongdoing, and released from custody the same day. The ACLU obtained public records that show Hebshi was removed from the flight because she was seated next to the men, and because of her ethnic name. 

After being released officials told Hebshi they appreciated her compliance and cooperation and apologized for the inconvenience. “I know now my only crime on that day was having an ethnic name and an arbitrary seat assigner,” Hebshi said. 

According to ACLU Staff Attorney Sarah Mehta one of the men was ill the day of the incident, and the men were going to the bathroom for 10 to 20 minutes each. Hebshi says she never spoke to the men during the flight, and was sleeping and reading throughout it.   

“Sacrificing the rights of some people because of their race or ethnicity in the name of national security will never be a justifiable tradeoff…no one is safer when law enforcement acts on a bias instead of evidence,” Mehta said.  

She says in the decades following 9/11 innocent individuals such as Hebshi have been humiliated and had their rights violated not for anything they’ve done, but simply for the way that they look and the ethnicity of their name. “Racial profiling allows some people’s constitutional rights to be valued more than others,” Mehta said. 

Hebshi’s mother is Jewish, and her father emigrated to the United States from Saudi Arabia.  

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, the Detroit law firm of Goodman and Hurwitz, and the Washington D.C., office of the law firm of Covington and Burling. 

Additional defendants listed on it include officials of the Transportation Security Administration, Wayne County Airport Authority, Detroit Metro Airport Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Patrol.   

The Arab American News (TAAN) has reported about similar incidents involving minorities who have been wrongfully arrested and detained by agents of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security because of their national origin, and ethnicity or suspicion that they’re in the country illegally.  

In April 2011 TAAN published an article documenting the abuse a Russian immigrant faced after ICE officers raided her home under suspicion she was in the country illegally. She was arrested, detained and strip searched by ICE officers in front of her son.  The woman says during the incident she was crying, and an ICE officer told her to be glad he didn’t shoot her in the head.   

“Through this lawsuit I hope to reclaim the dignity that is taken from us when racial profiling trumps the American values of fairness and equality…I speak out today because I know this is not the America I want to raise my kids in. This kind of discrimination cannot be tolerated,” Hebshi said.