Charlotte Pohl and Maria Lepere, German teens traveling to US jailed & deported because they were ‘deemed suspicious.’ Has U.S Customs and Border Protection along with U.S immigration policy gone too far in policing who is allowed in the country?
Define suspicious? Two German teenagers planning to explore the US on vacation were thrown in jail and then deported 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 Germany’s Ostsee Zeitung.
However, the teens as a consequence of not having booked their accommodations for the entire duration of their stay in Hawaii, ended up raising a red flag for US Customs and Border Protection, despite both of them having obtained an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA).
German teens lack of accommodation spark ‘suspicions’
What may have in the past may have not been a non issue, suddenly in the face of the Trump administration’s seemingly controversial approach to immigration in the U.S since returning to the White House has led to countless travellers to the U.S being denied entry.
‘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 turned into a nightmare for the two German teens.
The teens said that they were questioned at Honolulu Airport for hours before they were allegedly subjected to full-body scans and strip searches.
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, Beat of Hawaii reported.
Charlotte Pohl & Maria Lepere: victims of U.S draconian immigration policy?
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.
Which one wonders, is that backhand talk for, ’as long as your ideological talking points lines up with US official ‘foreign policy,’ we will let you in, but if not, we might just not let you in?
German teen drama one of many tales of woes for travelers to the US
Is joining a protest demanding the ceasing of killing civilians in Gaza akin to now saying one is on the same side as Hamas? Or when one objects to Israel’s political objectives, is that now fair game to be assumed being anti-semitic and a person non gratas in the U.S?
Or was US border customs really afraid the two German girls had come to ‘steal’ jobs from local workers? Or had been cunningly been planning on overstaying the U.S and illegally starting a new life in the United States? Or suddenly applying for welfare and ‘hand outs’? But on what basis?
Or should one now be concerned that along with persons coming from traditionally economically fragile nations, particularly latin and South America, Germans who come from the strongest economic nation in Europe were now the new destitute nation that residents were ‘seeking to escape from in search of a better life?’
The German travelers are not the only foreigners detained and then deported trying to enter the US over recent months.
Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney was denied entry into the country while trying to make her way from Mexico to San Diego, California after her work visa was revoked back in November while traveling from Vancouver to Los Angeles.
She was hurled into jail on March 3 and spent 12 days in detention, claiming it felt like she had been ‘kidnapped’ and trapped in an experiment. She told ABC10 ‘what is happening is so unjust and I know that there’s a better way to do this’.
Lucas Sielaff, 25, was driving into the US from Mexico with his American fiancée when he claims that Border Patrol agents accused of him violating the rules of his 90-day US tourist permit.
Sielaff, who alleges he held a valid visa and had visited the US several times before, was handcuffed, shackled and sent to a crowded immigration detention center where he spent 16 days locked up before being allowed to fly home to Germany.
‘I still have nightmares and I’m not yet back to normal,’ Sielaff told the Financial Times of the horrific experience. ‘I’m trying to process everything properly. It’ll take a while.’
Becky Burke, a Welsh backpacker traveling across North America, was stopped at the US-Canada border on February 26 and held for nearly three weeks at a detention facility in Washington state.
Concern of US policy, particularly its aggressive stance towards Gaza, seeking to take over Greenland despite the objection of Denmark, the demand that Canada become the 51st state of the U.S along with Trump’s new tariff policy has caused would be travelers to the U.S to think twice, with many choosing to cancel, or at least wait.
Travel from overseas to the US fell almost 12 percent last month compared to March in 2024, according to data from the International Trade Administration. That number in coming months may continue to deteriorate if the Trump administration‘s rhetoric towards foreign states amplifies along with traveler fears that they may now potentially be subjected to border interrogation and found to not be deemed worthy enough to be allowed entry into the U.S perhaps on arbitrary reasons, or reasons that never really used to matter in the past. And then out of pocket and time.
