Muslim Woman Says She Was Questioned, Removed From Plane

A Brooklyn woman wearing a head scarf says she was repeatedly questioned, then removed from a flight at Newark Liberty International Airport on Tuesday.

Kameela Rasheed, who was born in California and has lived in Brooklyn for the past five years, is Muslim. She said she was looking forward to a four-day vacation in Istanbul, Turkey this week. Instead, she said she was put through a "humiliating" ordeal at the airport, which culminated in her being removed from her Lufthansa flight.

"I think that everyone's been using words like resurgence, and escalating, and rising, and I don't think that Islamophobia is resurging or escalating," she said. "I think that it's always been there, it's been there before 9/11."

A spokeswoman for United Airlines, which sold the Lufthansa ticket to Rasheed, said a refund had been processed. But Rasheed said she hasn't received one.

Neither Lufthansa, nor the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport, has responded to a request for comment.