A five-year-old boy was detained at Washington Dulles International Airport on Saturday because he may have been ‘a threat to America’.
The kid was handcuffed and held in custody for five hours because he was “identified as a possible threat.”
The boy’s mother, who is Iranian, was waiting for him at the airport as he arrived with another family from Iran. He was one of more than 100 people detained for hours at airports across the country after U.S. President Donald Trump issued an order to ban immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries, reported The Independent.
The boy was later identified by Senator Chris Van Hollen as a US citizen who lives in Maryland. Hollen called it “outrageous” that the boy had been held for so long adding that he was detained despite giving the authorities advance notice of his arrival.
Defending the airport authorities’ behavior, Donald Trump’s Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, ‘To assume that just because of someone’s age and gender that they don’t pose a threat would be misguided and wrong.’
The incident caused outrage on Twitter with people criticising Trump’s outrageous policies