Two globetrotting German teenagers had their travel plans upended when they were denied entry to the U.S. and detained by border officers who called their trip “suspicious,” according to a report.
Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepère, 18, from Rostock—about 140 miles north of Berlin—had already visited New Zealand and Thailand as part of their around-the-world trip after graduating from high school.
Upon arriving in Honolulu on March 18 with hopes of island-hopping Hawaii’s islands, the teens were allegedly denied entry into the U.S. despite holding the required Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), according to German newspaper Ostsee Zeitung.
Pohl and Lepère were interrogated in Honolulu International Airport for hours and allegedly subjected to body scans and strip searches before, finally, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents denied them entry to the country and said they would be deported, according to the outlet.
“It was all like a fever dream,” Lepère said. “We had already noticed a little bit of what was going on in the U.S. But at the time, we didn’t think it was happening to Germans. That was perhaps very naive. We felt so small and powerless.”
Officials became suspicious of potential illegal work intentions after learning the teens had not booked accommodation for their entire five-week stay in Hawaii, according to Beat of 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.”
Pohl and Lepère say they were handcuffed and given green prison uniforms.
The women said they were placed in a holding cell beside some other detainees who were accused of serious crimes. The teens alleged they spent the night on moldy mattresses in a freezing double cell.
On March 19, the young travelers were allegedly taken back to Honolulu International Airport in handcuffs, where they requested to be sent to Tokyo, Japan.
Three days after their arrest, they returned to Rostock via Tokyo, Qatar, and Frankfurt am Main, according to Ostsee Zeitung.
The German Foreign Office told the outlet it was involved in Pohl and Lepere’s case and provided consular support following their experience.
The office reminded travelers that ESTA approval does not guarantee entry to the U.S. — a decision left to border officials at the point of arrival.
Germany updated its travel advisory to the U.S. last month, following some visitors’ turbulent experiences in the country amid Donald Trump’s border crackdown.
It emphasized that a visa or entry waiver does not guarantee entry to the country after several German nationals had recently been detained at the border.
In total, Western European visitors experienced a 12 percent drop-off in March, one of the largest on record outside of the pandemic, according to the National Travel and Tourism Office, a division of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
There was a significant decline in German visitors to the U.S. last month, with a decrease of more than 28 percent compared to the same period last year.
The Independent has contacted the CBP and German Foreign Office for more information.
