San Ramon Man Says United Employee Threatened To Call ICE At SFO

A San Ramon passenger says that a dispute over his daughter's airline ticket turned into a confrontation caught on video.

By Michael Wittner, Patch Staff

Jul 20, 2026 11:46 am PDT | Updated Jul 20, 2026 5:19 pm PDT

The United employee allegedly told San Ramon resident she would call ICE on him because he was "not acting like a citizen." (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

SAN RAMON, CA - A San Ramon man says a United Airlines employee at San Francisco International Airport threatened to call ICE on him during a ticketing dispute, according to video and reports.

The incident happened at the United ticket counter last Tuesday, when Julio Varela was traveling to Montreal with his wife and two daughters on a United flight operated by Air Canada. Varela told ABC7 and NBC Bay Area his wife had accidentally listed the last name of one of their daughters as her first name, and spent a total of 15 hours on the phone with the two airlines trying to resolve the issue.

A customer service agent advised the family to arrive early at the airport so the dispute could be resolved. Varela said that he and his family alternated for nearly three hours between the United Airlines and Air Canada counters. Roughly four minutes before the family was due to board, an Air Canada employee walked over to the United counter to ask them to release the ticket in their system.

“She said ‘I already told you. I can't do anything. Whether you fly out or not, I don't care,’” Varela told ABC7. “That's what triggered me to say, ‘you’re rude.’ And I also said you're rude and you're lazy.” He then took out his cell phone to record her, and she began recording him.

In a video released to NBC Bay Area, Varela asks for the employee’s name, and she refuses to give it to him. In the video, the employee then says, “Maybe we should call ICE on you, because you don’t act like a citizen.”

“It infuriated me, because I am a citizen, number one, and for her to threaten me like that with ICE, especially with the state of politics now in America and with what ICE is doing,” Varela, who is a Mexican-American naturalized citizen, told NBC News.

After a few minutes, the employee then left the ticket counter. Varela alleged that the employee hit his hand, causing the recording to stop. Another United employee ultimately resolved the issue, and the family made their flight to Montreal. Still, Varela said that the airline has not assured him that he won’t be detained when they return to San Francisco.

“We're looking into the interaction in this video, but don't have anything additional to share at this time,” United Airlines said in a statement.

“We are aware of a video being circulated online, but we have no verification of its authenticity or the full context,” the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) union said in a statement.

“As depicted, the comments made in the video do not reflect the views or values of the IAM Union. Any potential matters arising from this incident will be handled through the appropriate processes established by the collective bargaining agreement.”

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