A Valley veteran and U.S. citizen says he was wrongfully detained and forcibly removed from a cruise ship by border agents and he believes it was all a case of mistaken identity.
It became a 50th birthday cruise to the Caribbean for Jose "Joey" Martinez of north Phoenix that he'll never forget, but for all the wrong reasons.
Martinez, a U.S. Coast Guard veteran, says early Monday morning, after his cruise to the Caribbean was ending and the ship had docked in Miami for everyone to disembark, agents with Customs and Border Protection stormed into his cabin while he was sleeping, handcuffed him, and forcibly removed him, taking him to a holding cell off the ship.
Martinez explains he was in the holding cell for roughly 90 minutes at the port and had offered to show more proof of his identification - and even discussed the fact he served in the U.S. Coast Guard for seven years with agents, but that didn't seem to work initially.
Finally, after being fingerprinted and questioned some more, agents released him, explaining they had the wrong person, according to Martinez.
He says that with a name like "Jose Martinez," he has been detained before, since it's a common name, but never in a way that was as violent and traumatizing as this.
"The fact that what happened to me shows this could happen to anybody," explains Martinez. "There is so many other people out there that this is happening to, maybe not on a cruise ship, but maybe on the streets or in their homes. And it's just not right. There's no humanity in it. It's unnecessary. It's dehumanizing."
"It was traumatizing," adds Tammy Verhas, Martinez's wife.
As this was happening, his wife, Verhas, says she attempted to film, but was prevented from doing so by a female agent. Later on, Martinez and Verhas claim CBP agents forced them to delete the photos and videos they had taken of the incident. These are questions we are working to get answered by CBP officials.
ABC15 reached out to Carnival Cruise Line, which sent ABC15 the following statement:
We are aware that U.S. Customs and Border Protection took a guest into custody as a person of interest. As this is a law‑enforcement matter, we defer all further questions to the appropriate authorities."
ABC15 also reached out to ICE and Customs and Border Protection. A spokesperson from the Florida CBP office did not confirm any of the details, but told us they would look into the incident for us.
ABC15 also reached out to both Senator Mark Kelly's and Senator Ruben Gallego's offices to see if they were aware of what took place.
