This Phoenix man was unexpectedly detained by Border Patrol agents on cruise ship in Miami

A Phoenix man returning from a Caribbean cruise with his wife was unexpectedly detained by Border Patrol agents on Monday in Miami, Florida.

Jose “Joey” Martinez and his wife, Tammy Verhas, were asleep on their Carnival Cruise Line ship when they say a group of agents burst into their room yelling around 6:30 a.m., pulled Martinez out of bed, handcuffed him and took him to a holding cell.

He was detained for about an hour and a half.

Martinez said the agents told him he was flagged because someone with the same name is wanted for a crime.

“I didn't really understand why it went down the way it did,” he said. “In the aftermath of them verifying my identity, after they had fingerprinted me and took my picture, and they were speaking candidly about how they were pretty sure that this was going to be a name mismatch situation because the person with warrants had the same first and last name as me."

Martinez questioned why the agents didn’t just ask him or the cruise line for his identifying information before entering his room and taking him.

“Whenever you book a cruise, I have to provide my flight information, my known traveler number, my passport, facial recognition. There's so much stuff that information that I gather, personal identifying information. If they did their due diligence, this never should have happened,” Martinez said.

In addition to having a passport and a Real ID on hand (which is also a driver’s license), Martinez said he also had his veteran card and a concealed carry permit. The concealed carry permit requires an FBI background check.

He’s also TSA PreCheck, which includes its own background check.

Carnival Cruise Line did not respond to a request for comment.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson declined to answer questions about the detention but confirmed “U.S. Customs and Border Protection took a guest into custody as a person of interest.”

Martinez and his wife described the federal agents as about three men and one women, all dressed in black, armed with guns. They said they weren’t sure if the agents were with ICE or CBP.

Verhas started filming the agents when they entered their room but said the female agent “jumped on top of [her] in bed” and took her phone. They then told Martinez to delete the video in front of them, or they wouldn’t give the phone back. He complied, but said he wishes he hadn’t.

Verhas said she was hysterical when her husband was taken.

“He has no record. He's never been arrested. He's a veteran. He has been FBI cleared. I mean, you know, He's the average Joe. I figured he would come back, but the trauma that was going to happen in those 90 minutes was what I was concerned about,” she said.

Verhas has dual citizenship in Belgium. She was born there and moved here as a child. She was naturalized in 2007. The couple says they are considering moving to Belgium to feel safer. If it were easier financially, Verhas said she’d move tomorrow.

“I was naturalized in 2007. He's been an American a lot longer than I have,” she said of Martinez.

Martinez’s father served in the Air Force, so he was actually born in Thailand, but he was naturalized early and has lived in California and Arizona for most of his life.

As for sharing their story, she said they want people to know this can happen to anyone.

“On Monday, we were devastated. We were traumatized. We were crying. I didn't stop crying for 12 hours. Now I'm enraged,” she said.

“It's not OK that this is happening to people. You know, that this is the direction that the country's moving with immigration,” Martinez said. “I think I got off easy because I did everything that they wanted me to do. Complied, I listened to their instructions, but I still feel it never should have happened the way it did.”

Both Martinez and Verhas believe that racial profiling was most likely at play with Monday’s incident.

Martinez said that he’s somewhat used to “harassment.”

“We normally go through immigration, show our passports, and if there was anything that was flagged, normally they would pull us aside, talk to us then, provide any information I need to. I have a common Hispanic name of Jose Martinez, which is, you know, I kind of expect, but this was way out of line,” he said.

Martinez and Verhas both said they don’t consider themselves very political, but have been much more concerned about politics over the last year.

Verhas said she believes anyone “brown” in the United States should be scared right now.

“I was never worried about rights being taken away from me until Donald Trump entered the picture. And then I was like, oh my God, someone's trying to take my rights away. Now I need to become aware and I need to get involved," she said.

Ultimately, Verhas said she doesn’t understand why the agents treated her husband so roughly. Although he cooperated, she worried they would hurt him if he tried to resist.

“They can do whatever they want to, whomever they want. Nothing stops them now. We have no rights. That's the only reason we're sharing it,” she said.