What if I told you that a woman who has pleaded guilty to filing a false police report told a tall tale about the Department of Homeland Security kidnapping her and holding her in two different states incommunicado?
Would you automatically assume it is true and broadcast it as news to the world, creating a viral story that dominated discussion about ICE abuses for days?
Or would you check it out first?
Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi, a U.S. citizen from Skokie, spent nearly 30 hours in custody by federal immigration officials after she was detained at O’Hare Airport last week. Naqvi’s sister called the experience “terrifying.” https://t.co/N2uFdVzrv4
— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) March 9, 2026
Well, it all depends. Since the story makes ICE and the Trump administration look bad, Pravda and a bunch of Democrats ran with it and tried to create a firestorm. And, of course, her story was added to a long list of supposed abuses perpetrated by Trump’s gestapo.
Sunny Naqvi, a 28-year-old U.S. citizen, is now back at home after spending about 43 hours in Department of Homeland Security custody. https://t.co/9Fm6BgzCYr pic.twitter.com/lTqwe4BPOc
— ABC 7 Chicago (@ABC7Chicago) March 8, 2026
A candidate for Congress in Illinois used the story to grab attention for himself, whipping up his credulous Democratic Party supporters in outrage, because everybody knows that ICE is evil and detaining American citizens right and left. If they aren’t shooting them as they innocently drop their children off at daycare, that is.
URGENT: ICE and CBP have detained 3 U.S. citizens and 3 Green Card holders over 36 hours ago and they are still being held without any information on their whereabouts.
One of them, Sundas Naqvi, goes by Sunny. She was born in Evanston, IL, and is a U.S. Citizen.
We demand… pic.twitter.com/X5K3CUJzEI
— Reed Showalter for IL-7 (@reed_showalter) March 7, 2026
Homeland Security denied the reports, and even provided evidence that she was a liar, but that didn’t seem to slow down the true believers.
Homeland Security is the Gestapo, after all. Known liars, while this sympathetic and pretty brown girl certainly is telling the truth. Look at that cute outfit she wears.
HERE ARE THE RECEIPTS:
As we said Sunny Naqvi entered the CBP area at 10:21 am.
Surveillance footage from O’Hare CLEARLY shows her entering secondary inspection at 10:46 a.m., and leaving secondary to the public area at 11:42 a.m.
Her claims of spending 43 hours in DHS custody… https://t.co/GkqWBLS6sn pic.twitter.com/SWOJmMulcy
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) March 11, 2026
After several days of the controversy brewing, the Chicago Tribune did something remarkable, and very unusual in today’s media environment: they checked the story out, and it was, of course, a hoax. And one as believable as Jussie Smollett’s, which took the world by storm for weeks before it all began to fall apart.
That one made Trump look bad, too. Funny, I know.
https://t.co/9cIk1ZHWxE https://t.co/dGW5xoE1d9
— Heather Gustafson (@mommymcgraw) March 11, 2026
The Tribune takes forever to get to the bottom of the story, treating it almost like a human interest piece, with the conclusion many paragraphs down, but they do get to the bottom of it. Sunny is a pathological liar, who has pleaded guilty to filing false police reports, lied about where she works, and who clearly lied about this incident that never happened.
A Skokie woman made headlines this week after her family and a local politician claimed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security detained her for nearly 48 hours before she ultimately ended up in Wisconsin — an extraordinary story disputed by accounts from the federal government, two sheriff’s departments and her purported employer.
Summer Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi’s family alleges the 28-year-old woman was taken into custody Thursday morning at O’Hare International Airport after arriving on a flight from Istanbul. Naqvi, whom Cook County records show was born in Evanston, allegedly told her family that she was detained at the airport and then taken to Immigration and Customs Enforcement centers in two different states.
Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison, a family friend, told the Tribune that Naqvi was sent to an ICE facility in west suburban Broadview and, later, a Wisconsin jail that frequently houses Chicago-area detainees before she was released.
Sarah Afzal, the sister of Summer Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi, listens to Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison speak near the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, March 8, 2026. (Josh Boland/Chicago Tribune)
Sarah Afzal, the sister of Summer Sundas “Sunny” Naqvi, listens to Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison speak near the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, March 8, 2026. (Josh Boland/Chicago Tribune)
But in a statement Monday, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said that Naqvi had only been directed through additional security screening upon arriving at the Chicago airport Thursday and was cleared to leave. She “departed CBP” of her own volition less than two hours after landing, the statement said.
“The passenger’s claims are blatantly false,” said Harry Fones, principal deputy assistant secretary for public affairs for the Department of Homeland Security. “Ms. Naqvi departed CBP within 90 minutes of her arrival to the United States. Ms. Naqvi was not taken into custody or transferred to ICE for detention.”
It wasn’t just the famously evil DHS who disputed her story; everybody from the airport to the two sheriffs who would have been involved said it never happened, and there is video evidence that she was detained for 90 minutes for questioning about her odd travel itinerary.
Over the weekend, Naqvi’s supporters, including Morrison, said that she had been traveling on a work trip for a German software company, when she was detained at O’Hare. Naqvi had been flying back to the U.S. with five co-workers, all of whom are of South Asian descent and all of whom were detained along with her, Morrison and her sister said.
A LinkedIn page that listed Naqvi as a “Senior Solution Architect” for SAP SE on Monday has now been taken down.
A spokesperson for SAP — a multinational German software company — said that Naqvi had never been employed there, nor had any of its employees been detained at O’Hare.
Neither Naqvi, her sister nor Morrison have provided the identities of the co-workers to Tribune reporters seeking to verify the story.
Meanwhile, statements from the sheriff’s offices in Cook County and Dodge County, Wisconsin, said there was no indication of her being detained at local facilities.
The Department of Homeland Security has an agreement with Dodge County to house immigration-related detainees, including those from the Chicago area, and county officials say that jail logs “confirm that no female inmates or detainees from the federal government were admitted or released.”
“Because no booking of Ms. Naqvi ever took place, the Sheriff’s Office does not have contact information for her; however, we are asking that she contact us so we may speak with her regarding the allegation and obtain evidence of the incident from her,” Dodge County officials wrote in a statement on Monday.
And at the behest of Morrison, Cook County sheriff’s officers got permission to enter and search the Broadview detention center for Naqvi on Friday, but they didn’t find anybody in the cells, spokesperson Matt Walberg said.
Sunny is no longer talking to the press about this, but her lawyer’s explanation for all the evidence suggesting that she is lying is that DHS is a big fat liar.
Her attorney, Robert Held, continued to defend her on Tuesday and argued that DHS has a history of misleading the public. Held told the Tribune he reached a CBP chief at O’Hare over the phone earlier on Saturday. That officer allegedly told him that Naqvi had only been detained for two minutes and “was free to walk out the door, and did so,” which Held said was not his understanding of what transpired and he found the government’s account difficult to believe given that “ICE has been dishonest in the past.”
Brittni Rivera, a Chicago immigration lawyer, said she also made calls on Morrison’s behalf Friday to an assistant attorney at the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago, and they told her Naqvi was not in CBP or ICE custody and “there was no record of her” being processed.
As you can see, massive resources were deployed to find Sunny, with multiple Sheriffs looking for her, and the US Attorney having to investigate what is, obviously, complete bulls**t.
Naqvi said Monday she wasn’t sure where her ID and other belongings were, but she believed her luggage was still at Broadview.
Walberg, the Cook County sheriff’s spokesperson, said officers did not find any luggage in their search of the suburban processing center.
After holding a news conference Sunday, Naqvi’s family declined to answer additional questions from the Tribune.
In a text message to the Tribune, Afzal said: “We’d like everyone to respect our family’s privacy due to safety concerns.”
The Tribune’s story doesn’t quite conclude that Naqvi is a liar, and I suppose that until she confesses or her whereabouts during her disappearance for a few days are determined, that’s fair. But the evidence is overwhelming that she is a liar—she lied about everything else, and is an admitted liar in court—so the real question is why nobody in the media decided to check out her story before blasting it out to the world as fact.
“If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out.”
But if a grifter sells a story that makes Trump and ICE look bad, spread it far and wide.
UPDATE: Yet another immigration hoax.
You truly don’t hate the media enough
Boston Globe: Judge orders release of 14-year-old girl detained by federal immigration agents
Homeland Security: The 14-year-old girl was rescued by federal immigration agents from gang members. pic.twitter.com/3C8DSSFAai
— Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) March 12, 2026
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