A newlywed couple from the UK were detained at an airport in the US for 26 hours and then deported, apparently because the groom was Muslim.
Natasha Politakis, 29, and her new husband Ali Gul, 32, paid £7,000 for their two-week trip to Los Angeles, Hawaii and Las Vegas.
They ended up having to spend more than a day in Los Angeles International Airport, before being they were refused entry entirely and flown back to the UK.
While in the detention centre, they were refused a shower and had all of their possessions confiscated. They were only given their phones back when they were back on British soil.
When they tried to find out why they were detained, officials handcuffed them and marched them onto a flight back to London.
Although they were never told why they were denied entry, Natasha suspects it was because of her husband’s Turkish name and origin.
“Ali is British, however, and holds a British passport. I am in utter shock that this has happened,” she said.
“We had just got married, we were on our way to our honeymoon as excited as anything, and never expected that we would be deported. We were treated like criminals and we had all the relevant documentation and answered all their questions,” Politakis said.
“We believe that since Trump was elected, they took one look at his name, thought he was Muslim and did not let him in,” she said.
The couple, from Enfield in North London, had two weddings earlier this year a registrar wedding in April for Ali’s Turkish family, and then a big church wedding on May 6.
Two weeks later they set off for their honeymoon.
They have now been told that if they wish to complain they need to contact the US embassy, but they have struggled to get an appointment, the report said.
The couple managed to book a last-minute holiday to Mexico instead, and are now in the process of trying to get their money back from their insurance.
