Two German teenagers planning to explore the US on vacation were thrown in jail and then booted from the country after Customs and Border Protection found their loosely planned trip “suspicious.”
Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii, on March 18, with plans to travel around the Islands for five weeks before heading to California and then Costa Rica after their high school graduation, according to the German outlet Ostsee Zeitung.
However, the teens made the mistake of not booking their accommodations for the entire duration of their stay in Hawaii, which raised a red flag for US Customs and Border Protection, despite both of them having obtained an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
“They found it suspicious that we hadn’t fully booked our accommodations for the entire five weeks in Hawaii,” Pohl told the outlet.
What was supposed to be a fun, lengthy expedition quickly turned into a nightmare.
The teens said that they were questioned at Honolulu Airport for hours before they were allegedly subjected to full-body scans and strip searches, according to the outlet.
They were then given green prison uniforms and placed in a holding cell with long-term detainees, some of whom were reportedly accused of serious crimes.
The young travelers said they allegedly had to sleep on thin, moldy mattresses and were warned by guards to avoid expired food.
The next morning, the teens were told they were being deported and taken back to Honolulu airport, where they requested to be sent to Japan.
The German Foreign Office informed the outlet that it was involved in Pohl and Lepere’s case and provided consular support following their experience.
The office also stated that what happened to the girls should serve as a reminder to travelers that having an ESTA — which allows citizens of certain countries to travel to the US without a visa for short stays — does not guarantee entry into the United States. The decision to allow travelers into the US is always left to the discretion of CBP agents.
There has been a significant decrease in European travelers visiting the states over the past few months, despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s efforts to ease concerns among foreigners wanting to travel to America.
“I would say that if you’re not coming to the United States to join a Hamas protest or to come here and tell us about how right Hamas is or to tell us about – stir up conflict on our campuses and create riots in our street and vandalize our universities, then you have nothing to worry about,” Rubio said earlier this month.
The German travelers are not the only foreigners detained and then deported trying to enter the US over recent months.
In March, former Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney said she was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the southern border while trying to obtain a work visa after her previous one was revoked in November.
Mooney, 35, claimed she was nabbed at the San Ysidro border between Mexico and San Diego on March 3 and held in “inhumane” conditions for 12 days before being released.
The former actress described being kept in a cold room for three days at the world’s busiest land border before she was arrested by ICE and thrown into San Diego’s Otay Mesa Detention Center.
“I was put in a cell, and I had to sleep on a mat with no blanket, no pillow, with an aluminum foil wrapped over my body like a dead body for two and a half days,” Mooney said.
Mooney, a co-founder of the health-focused tonic drink brand Holy! Water, said she went to the southern border — where she obtained her first work visa — on the advice of her lawyer, and came prepared with a new job offer and her visa paperwork in hand.
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