On Monday, October 2, 2023, a 21-year-old Lehman College student from New York City was sentenced to a year in prison in Dubai over an incident during a layover at Dubai International Airport in July 2023. After much grief and help from the US State Department, Elizabeth Polanco De Los Santos was released and her sentence was suspended on October 3, allowing her to return home.
The young student from the Bronx was returning home to New York City from a vacation in Istanbul. She altered her trip, which originally had a connection through Paris, to transit through Dubai, allowing her to experience the renowned city during a long layover. However, what was meant to be a brief stop turned into a prolonged stay filled with distress and legal complications.
Reports suggest that De Los Santos was asked by airport security to remove a waist compressor she wore due to a recent surgical procedure.
According to sources, the security staff handled the garment roughly, causing discomfort and pain to her still-healing surgical scars and allegedly laughed at her. When De Los Santos requested assistance in putting the waist compressor back on, a task she describes as intricate due to the many pins and clips, the staff refused.
Feeling violated and needing help, she attempted to bypass a security guard blocking her path to call out to her friend. In the process, she touched the security guard’s arm, which led to her detention. She was confined for several hours and compelled to sign documents in Arabic. When she later returned to catch her flight home, she discovered a travel ban had been placed against her, barring her departure from the country.
An advocacy group reported that she had been trapped in the city for close to three months, accumulating around $50,000 in expenses, including attorney fees.
According to a statement from “Detained in Dubai” CEO Radha Stirling, “Elizabeth boarded her flight home to New York late Tuesday night.”