A Phoenix man returning from a Caribbean cruise with his wife was unexpectedly detained by Border Patrol agents on Monday in Miami, Florida.

Jose “Joey” Martinez and his wife, Tammy Verhas, were asleep on their Carnival Cruise Line ship when they say a group of agents burst into their room yelling around 6:30 a.m., pulled Martinez out of bed, handcuffed him and took him to a holding cell.

He was detained for about an hour and a half.

Martinez said the agents told him he was flagged because someone with the same name is wanted for a crime.

“I didn’t really understand why it went down the way it did,” he said. “In the aftermath of them verifying my identity, after they had fingerprinted me and took my picture, and they were speaking candidly about how they were pretty sure that this was going to be a name mismatch situation because the person with warrants had the same first and last name as me."

Martinez questioned why the agents didn’t just ask him or the cruise line for his identifying information before entering his room and taking him.

“Whenever you book a cruise, I have to provide my flight information, my known traveler number, my passport, facial recognition. There’s so much stuff that information that I gather, personal identifying information. If they did their due diligence, this never should have happened,” Martinez said.

In addition to having a passport and a Real ID on hand (which is also a driver’s license), Martinez said he also had his veteran card and a concealed carry permit. The concealed carry permit requires an FBI background check.

He’s also TSA PreCheck, which includes its own background check.

Carnival Cruise Line did not respond to a request for comment.

  • partial_accumen@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Jose “Joey” Martinez

    …and…

    Martinez said the agents told him he was flagged because someone with the same name is wanted for a crime.

    “MARTINEZ ranks # 11 in terms of the most common surnames in America for 2000.” source

    Jose is the #51 most common male first name in the USA in the last 100 years source

    Using the force of law to burst into a room on a ship and dragging a person out of bed simply on a name match of one of the most common names is the height of both stupidity and malice.