The son of the late boxing great Muhammad Ali was detained at a Florida airport this month and asked about his religious preferences, a family friend says.
Muhammad Ali Jr., 44, was returning to the U.S. from Jamaica with his mother, Khalilah Camacho-Ali, when customs pulled them aside at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Feb. 7 for questioning, Chris Mancini, a family friend and lawyer, told the Courier-Journal Friday.
Customs officials let Camacho-Ali proceed once she produced a photo of herself with her former husband Muhammad Ali, but since Ali Jr. did not have such a photo, they detained him for almost two hours. During his detention, he says officials asked him questions like “Where did you get your name from?” and “Are you Muslim?”
Ali Jr., who like his late father is Muslim, is an American citizen with no criminal record. He was carrying a U.S. passport with him at the time of his detention.
“This is an outrage,” said Mancini, who is a former federal prosecutor. “I don’t know what is going on with Mr. Trump’s claim that his ban is not religion-based. We do not discriminate in this country based on religion.”
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