A model beauty queen has told how she was held in a cell and ejected from the US after she was accused of getting into the country on a tourist visa so she could start a business.
Brazilian influencer Francielly Ouriques told social media followers she had arrived in America to go to the Coachella music festival in Indio, California, on 10th April.
Picture shows Francielly Ouriques holding a personal document, undated. The Brazilian model said she had her visa revoked when she tried to enter the US. Note: Image is a screenshot from video. (@franciellyouriques/Newsflash/NX)
But when her plane landed in Chicago for a connecting flight immigration officials intercepted her, she says, and subjected her to interrogation.
In a 15th April video post seen by nearly 300,000 people, 25-year-old Francielly said: "I was treated like a criminal.
"I spent the rest of the day locked in a three-metre-square [33-square-foot] cell with a bench, a mattress and a plastic sheet, if you could call it a sheet."
Picture shows Francielly Ouriques holding a personal document, undated. The Brazilian model said she had her visa revoked when she tried to enter the US. Note: Image is a screenshot from video. (@franciellyouriques/Newsflash/NX)
She added: "I'd picked up my bags, and when I went towards the exit and a guard approached me asking if I had anything illegal inside my bags.
"Obviously, I said no. Even so, he sent me to a room."
But customs officials found a banned prescription-only painkiller and began a painstaking search of her luggage and mobile phone.
On her smartphone, she says they discovered messages with her boyfriend which apparently talked about setting up a company in the US.
Francielly Ouriques poses in undated photo. The Brazilian model said she had her visa revoked when she tried to enter the US. Note: Private photo taken from social media. (@franciellyouriques/Newsflash/NX)
Immigration officials, said Francielly, cancelled her tourist visa and forced her to sign a document saying she withdrew any intention to set up a business in America.
Before she stood down from competition, Francielly won the Miss Brazil, Miss Asia Pacific and Miss Panamerican International.
She said: "They'd given me a bottle of water, a carton of food and from 7am to 7pm I was locked in that room. It was total humiliation."
(Clive Goodman / newsX)