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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[–] DicJacobus@lemmy.world 21 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I know every country has its problems and that there are desperate people everywhere.

but its very much american exceptionalism, that americans would assume people coming from a country that has infinitely more worker rights, would move to their failing state just to work.

[–] Doorbook@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If the US stop bombing and middling in South America, and countries in the middle east, most of these people will voluntary go back or never try to get into the states in the first place.

[–] DicJacobus@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago

not the only ones spreading death and displacement,

Russia, Turkey, Israel, and Saudi Arabia to name a few of the worst offenders

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 9 points 6 days ago

NGL, traveling to America right now is just too risky. Don't do it, for your own safety.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 7 points 6 days ago

Oh the horror! Not hard working people working for USA!

[–] rothaine@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago

Holy shit the comments on that article. I know NY Post leans right, but some of them got their noses so far up Trump's ass they're snorting small intestine

I travelled a lot and never pre booked more than the first night

[–] thoralf@discuss.tchncs.de 215 points 1 week ago (24 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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[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 129 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 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.

[–] Bassman1805@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

Per that last bit, I'm guessing they never had a lawyer present. Would make any of those fabricated statements null and void, if the constitution meant anything.

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

This is pretty standard treatment. There are only a limited number of holding cells in an airport, moslty for men.

If there is no returning flight that day they are sent to a local jail (known as a remand centre outside of the US) and stripping and searching is standard at those places.

The women said that they were going to do work in the US.

[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 0 points 6 days ago

The women said “They twisted it to make it seem as if we admitted that we wanted to work illegally in the US.”

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[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 101 points 1 week ago (4 children)

They're lucky they were sent home instead of to an El Salvador concentration camp.

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[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 101 points 1 week ago (1 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 88 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.

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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 72 points 1 week ago (7 children)

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

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[–] GoodOleAmerika@lemmy.world 70 points 1 week ago (15 children)

This has been happening for a long time. It's just that they are from first world country. Welcome to how it feels to be from a third world country. Not only US but I have been stopped at Munich and Frankfurt airport and thoroughly scanned and document checked while everyone just walk through security.

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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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