this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
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The teens claimed CBP targeted them because they hadn’t booked hotels for their entire stay in Hawaii.

“They found it suspicious that we hadn’t fully booked our accommodations for the entire five weeks in Hawaii,” Pohl said. “We wanted to travel spontaneously. Just like we had done in Thailand and New Zealand.”

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[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world -3 points 6 days ago (4 children)

At least they weren't detained.

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[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Why go to US, Germany is far more wonderful

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[–] thoralf@discuss.tchncs.de 217 points 1 week ago (23 children)

I don’t get it. Why would anyone still travel to the US without being forced to?

[–] Infernal_pizza@lemm.ee 132 points 1 week ago (19 children)

There's a significant amount of the US population who still don't realise how bad things are, you really expect everyone outside the US to be any better?

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[–] RejZoR@lemmy.ml 50 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I wouldn't go to USA even if you pay me. To be "mistakenly" deported to El Salvador and then they fucking "don't know" how to get you out. Fuck no.

I used to say this about 3rd world countries to avoid them, now USA is on that list. Imagine USA being that bad. Well, it is that bad now. When it was under Biden, I wouldn't even think about it. With this orange baboon, no fucking chance you see me go to USA.

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[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 130 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (6 children)

Both say they were handcuffed and sent to a detention center, which they claimed was more like a prison.

“We were searched with metal detectors, our entire bodies were scanned, and we had to stand naked in front of the police officers and were looked through,” Pohl said. “Then we were given green prison clothes and put in a prison cell with serious criminals.”

Among them was someone who had spent 18 years behind bars for murder, the women said, and they were left sleeping in a double cell with tiny barred windows and metal bunks with moldy mattresses.

I really want to know what changed that made the above happen much more often.

In December, if Customs had concerns about two teenagers trying to sneak into the US to work on a travel visa, where did they go? How was it handled? Because it feels like overkill and probably much more expensive than what we used to do.

Why are we sending backpacking teenagers with visa concerns to the same place as a murderer?

Why are they being strip searched like they were drug smugglers?

But the women — who were planning to continue on to Los Angeles and then Costa Rica after Hawaii — insisted they were interrogated by CBP for hours, and that transcripts show their words were “twisted” and outright falsified.

“They contained sentences we didn’t actually say,” Pohl said of interrogation transcripts they were sent home with.

“They twisted it to make it seem as if we admitted that we wanted to work illegally in the US,” she told the German outlet Ostee Zeitung.

And then this feels like the after-the-fact coverup. Whatever they held them on was super flimsy, so they tried to make it sound worse when they realized this was going to hit the news.

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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 102 points 1 week ago (2 children)

“But at the time, we didn’t think it was happening to Germans,” Lepere said. “That was perhaps very naïve. We felt so small and powerless.”

They never think it could happen to them until it does. It already happened to Germans months ago tho and there was lots of press coverage, so this case of "i didnt know" is extra odd. I guess people just dont pay attention to actual relevant news.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 89 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They were teenagers who had spent the last 5 weeks traveling the world. They probably just didn't think keeping up with developments in the US was important. That plus a healthy dose of white privilege (and probably a wealthy background given that they were teenagers on a world tour) telling them oppression was something that happens to other people.

[–] ValiantDust@feddit.org 61 points 1 week ago

Agreed. As a white German woman myself, I can tell you that we are very used to being above any suspicion. I have been waved on in every traffic control and border check I've ever been in.

Also the German passport is one of the strongest in the world, we can basically go wherever we want when travelling. And now suddenly the US of all places is a country we have to be cautious in.

This is of course a very privileged position to be in, but they are teenagers, they probably haven't had to think about that until now.

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[–] mapmyhike@lemmy.world 79 points 1 week ago (4 children)

"We wanted to travel spontaneously."

This is how my sister and I do our road trips. We get in the car and drive until we are tired then search for a hotel. If we find a town we like we might stop there even if the day is young.

[–] Geetnerd@lemmy.world 71 points 1 week ago (9 children)

When they denying whiter than white German kids, shit done got real.

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[–] boaratio@lemmy.world 64 points 1 week ago (17 children)

The most shocking thing about this is the five weeks. Like as Americans we have no clue how the rest of the world lives. The entire country of France stops working for 6 weeks in the summer. And we fight to get 2 weeks if we're lucky.

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[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 58 points 1 week ago (26 children)

Having not fully booked your accommodation for the entire trip could get you denied entry to the US before Trump. Just saying. Especially if you aren’t white. Same with not having an outbound ticket.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm sure it happens occasionally but I've never actually heard of CPB asking for hotel bookings, just outbound flight number. This is stuff you'd submit on a visa application. If the US wants to make Europeans get visa to travel then they should just do that.

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[–] Poem_for_your_sprog@lemmy.world 57 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Why would anybody travel to that shithole country?

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[–] secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world 49 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I completely believe these women, and I am sure Border Patrol invented sentences and put them in the transcript, altering what the women said in some parts and outright making stuff up in others. People assume transcripts are correct, but any corrupt authority can alter them or attribute anything to anyone. I called the Border Patrol to find out more and they surprisingly admittted to this corruption, saying "Yep, we alter transcripts all the time in between felching each other and praising Moloch."

[–] saltesc@lemmy.world 33 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Apart from work trips, I can't think of the last time I had accommodation all booked. I don't really see the point of travelling if you don't make plans after being there a while and getting to know good info from locals. A lot of the time locations or weather just sucks, so I keep on and adventure somewhere else instead. That's kind of normal outside of resort holidaying.

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