![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GETTYIMAGES-2244764792-KQED.jpg\")
<\/p>\nA ticketing mix-up ahead of a family vacation to Canada escalated into a viral confrontation after a United Airlines worker allegedly told a Mexican-American passenger, \u201cMaybe we should call ICE on you. You\u2019re not acting like a citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jul 17, 2026<\/p>\n
Updated 1:44 pm PT<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A United Airlines plane takeoff from the San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco on Nov. 5, 2025.\u00a0(Tayfun Coskun\/Anadolu via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
A Bay Area resident accused a United Airlines employee of threatening to call federal immigration authorities after a confrontation at the airline\u2019s counter at San Francisco International Airport<\/a> on Tuesday, prompting an internal probe by the airline.<\/p>\n The incident was captured on video by the passenger, San Ramon business owner Julio Varela, and widely circulated on Reddit<\/a>. In the footage, a person who appears to be a United employee is seen recording Varela with a cellphone before stating: \u201cMaybe we should call ICE on you. You\u2019re not acting like a citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n Varela, a Mexican American and naturalized United States citizen, was traveling to Montreal with his wife and two daughters. KQED has reviewed Varela\u2019s ticket and videos of the encounter and was able to confirm he was at the airport at that time. He told KQED the employee\u2019s conduct was discriminatory and unprovoked.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI am Mexican. I was born in Mexico, I am a U.S. citizen. I own my own business. I pay taxes. I employ people,\u201d Varela said on Friday. \u201cFor her, especially with what\u2019s going on right now in America \u2026 to say that to a minority, especially a Hispanic person, I think it\u2019s really, really hateful and it\u2019s really racist.\u201d<\/p>\n United Airlines declined to answer specific questions regarding the employee\u2019s conduct or employment status.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re looking into the interaction in this video, but don\u2019t have anything additional to share at this time,\u201d a United media relations spokesperson told KQED.<\/p>\n Varela said he, his wife and two of their daughters arrived at SFO around 8:15 a.m. on Tuesday for an 11:40 a.m. flight to Montreal, Canada, where his wife was attending a work conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weeks prior, he said, his wife had accidentally entered their daughter\u2019s middle name in the last name field when booking through United for a flight operated by Air Canada. Varela said they spent roughly 15 hours on the phone in the two weeks leading up to the trip trying to fix the error, and were bounced repeatedly between the two airlines\u2019 customer service lines.<\/p>\n At the airport, the family spent nearly three hours walking back and forth between the United and Air Canada counters, he said. According to Varela, Air Canada agents were trying to help, but needed United to release the ticket in their system. Four minutes before the family was supposed to board, he said, an Air Canada supervisor walked over to the United counter to plead the family\u2019s case.<\/p>\n Varela said the United employee he spoke with was dismissive, allegedly telling the Air Canada supervisor that she didn\u2019t care if the family missed their flight.<\/p>\n \u201cShe said, \u2018I\u2019m not dealing with it, it ain\u2019t my problem,\u2019\u201d Varela said. \u201cThat is when I was like, man, you\u2019re so lazy, so rude. And she was like, \u2018Why are you calling me this?\u2019 I go, \u2018Yeah, what\u2019s your name?\u2019 That\u2019s when I pulled out my phone.\u201d<\/p>\n In the footage, the United employee \u2014 wearing a badge identifying her as an International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union steward \u2014 refused to give her name and began recording Varela with her own phone.<\/p>\n When she reemerges from a back room, Varela again asks for her name.<\/p>\n SFO officials declined to comment, directing inquiries to United Airlines.<\/p>\n The incident comes amid mounting fear among travelers of federal immigration enforcement at transit hubs. On July 13, video footage captured plainclothes ICE agents tackling and attempting to handcuff<\/a> a 57-year-old man at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas.\u00a0<\/p>\n In March, plainclothes ICE agents detained Angelina Lopez-Jimenez<\/a>, a Contra Costa County mother and her 9-year-old daughter at SFO\u2019s Terminal 3. The two were deported to Guatemala within 48 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n That arrest, which was prompted by data-sharing between the Transportation Security Administration and ICE<\/a>, drew intense backlash from civil rights advocates and prompted the San Francisco Board of Supervisors<\/a> to pass a resolution condemning federal immigration enforcement at the airport.<\/p>\n Though San Francisco is a sanctuary city, local policies cannot physically bar federal ICE agents from operating within the airport.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time I fly, I\u2019m like, \u2018Are they going to let me in?\u2019\u201d Varela said. \u201cYou could be an American citizen born here. It doesn\u2019t matter.\u201d<\/p>\n Varela said that he heard through a personal connection at the airline that the employee had been suspended pending an investigation, though United did not confirm this.<\/p>\n The incident, he said, has cast a shadow over his family\u2019s vacation, and he is currently considering seeking legal counsel regarding a potential civil rights violation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t normalize racism. You can\u2019t treat racists with empathy,\u201d Varela said. \u201cI definitely hope she gets fired.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A ticketing mix-up ahead of a family vacation to Canada escalated into a viral confrontation after a United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-402670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/United-Airlines.jpg\")
Passengers wait for their flights inside San Francisco International Airport on Dec. 10, 2025.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/260209-SFOSLEEPING-27-BL-KQED.jpg\")
A person sits on a bench at San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 9, 2026.<\/p>\n