The mother of a biracial child has filed a lawsuit against Southwest Airlines accusing them of racially profiling her and her daughter and accusing the mother of child trafficking. The mother filed the lawsuit on August 3 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado.

In 2021, Mary MacCarthy, a white woman, was traveling with her 10-year-old biracial daughter from California to Denver to attend the funeral of a family member. The 10-year-old has a Haitian father and has darker skin because of her mixed ethnicity. After boarding, MacCarthy says a Southwest flight attendant flagged the pair for suspected human trafficking and that they were targeted “for no reason other than the different color” of their skin.

MacCarthy details in her lawsuit that when the flight she and her daughter were on landed, they were met by officers of the Denver Police Department. The officers had a series of questions about their relationship, their identities, and the purpose of their travel. The mother and daughter were eventually allowed to leave; however, MacCarthy details that the damage had already been done and that she and her daughter suffered “extreme emotional distress” because of the experience.

Body camera footage captured by Denver officers shows MacCarthy consoling her daughter who is visibly upset. After the flight attendant and officers tell the mother and daughter duo that everything is OK after confirming their relationship, MacCarthy can be heard saying “No this isn't OK. This isn’t OK.”

MacCarthy alleges that the officers and Southwest employees tried to question her and her daughter separately after they said the pair displayed “suspicious behavior” when they boarded the flight. A police report which took down the statement of a flight attendant said that as part of that suspicious behavior, MacCarthy “demanded” to sit next to her daughter. The report adds that the flight attendant found it “odd” the pair were not speaking much on the flight and that the girl was allegedly not allowed to speak to crew members.

MacCarthy explains in the lawsuit that she and her daughter were not speaking much when they boarded because they were “exhausted and in shock due to my brother having died suddenly the night before.”

Despite already passing through TSA screening and showing identification while boarding, McCarthy insists that she and her daughter were targeted simply because of their skin color.

According to the International Air Transport Association, flight attendants and other airline professionals are trained to spot victims of human trafficking by adhering to the latest guidelines. included in these guidelines are singling out individuals who appear “fearful, timid, or submissive” or “defer to another person to speak for him or her or someone who seems to be in control of the situation.”

MacCarthy’s lawyer, David Lane, shared with reporters that the aim of the lawsuit is to ensure that racial discrimination does not take place. Additionally, the lawsuit is seeking to have Southwest amp up its training policies for recognizing signs of child trafficking without resorting to discrimination practices such as racial profiling.

Lane shared in a statement, “In using racial profiling to cause the Denver police to stop innocent travelers, Southwest Airlines has attempted to address the serious crime of sex trafficking through use of a stereotypical, easy formula.” Lane adds, “Just as the police are constitutionally not permitted to stop and frisk young men of color based upon their race, corporate America is similarly not permitted to resort to such profiling in using law enforcement to stop and question racially diverse families simply based upon their divergent races, which is what Southwest did.”

Although MacCarthy and her daughter were ultimately allowed to leave after their identities were verified, MacCarthy shares that the damage was already done and that the incident “was extremely traumatic” for her daughter. MacCarthy explains that every time the incident is brought up, her daughter “goes silent.”

Southwest Airlines has since responded to the lawsuit sharing a statement that reads in part,

“We were disheartened to learn of this mother’s account when traveling with her daughter. We are conducting a review of the situation internally, and we will be reaching out to the Customer to address her concerns and offer our apologies for her experience traveling with us. Our Employees undergo robust training on Human Trafficking. Above all, Southwest Airlines prides itself on providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for the millions of Customers who travel with us each year.”