Outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in suburban Broadview on Sunday, Sarah Afzal spoke on behalf of her 28-year-old sister, Sundas Naqvi, who goes by Sunny.
Elected officials, family members and Sunny’s attorney stood alongside her, sharing their accounts of what they say happened after Sunny returned to Chicago.
Afzal says Sunny, a U.S. citizen born in Evanston, was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport while returning from Turkey on Thursday.
“Detained with no cause. All she was told was that there was curious travel history,” said Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison.
Afzal says Sunny was held at the lower level of Terminal 3 at O’Hare for nearly 30 hours along with five of her colleagues. Two of them are also U.S. citizens and three are green card holders.
The group had originally been headed to India for a work trip with a layover in Turkey, but the trip was canceled after visa issues came up while they were there. They split up and traveled to different countries in the region, with Sunny going to Bulgaria and Austria. The group later reunited in Turkey and flew back to Chicago on Thursday morning.