elizadoo

Is there anyone who can advise? We are stuck in Miami overnight because U.S. Immigration detained my daughter, a valid US citizen with passport, when she disembarked her LIS-MIA flight this afternoon. She was held in a separate room for 2 hours while the Immigration officials searched for her checked baggage. Her checked bag was not on the TAP flight. She was released after 2 hours, but the Immigration official would not give her the claim check back. He told her she must return to the MIA airport tomorrow afternoon (>24 hours, so we now must pay to stay in a hotel for 2 nights as we live 5 hours from Miami) and go the TAP ticket counter to file a lost luggage claim.

Knowing we need to file a claim immediately, we went to the TAP counter to file a lost luggage claim (with no claim check). The TAP the counter was closed. We then checked TAP online and saw that a claim for missing luggage must be filed before leaving arrivals. We could not do so, obviously.

We then called TAP in Portugal (midnight there) and were told to get the claim check back from U.S. Immigration in order to file a lost luggage claim. Impossible, as nobody can go back inside Immigration.

Does anyone know what we should do next? Thank you.