U.S. Jails and Deports German Teens Over ‘Suspicious’ Vacation

Two German teenagers were hoping to kick off their post-graduation adventure with beaches and sunshine. Instead, they got jail cells, strip searches, and a one-way ticket out of the U.S.—all for not booking their accommodations in advance.

Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, landed in Honolulu on March 18, planning to spend five weeks in Hawaii before heading to California and Costa Rica. But when they couldn’t show proof of lodging for the entire trip, U.S. Customs and Border Protection flagged their vacation as “suspicious.”

“They found it suspicious that we hadn’t fully booked our accommodations for the entire five weeks in Hawaii,” Pohl told Ostsee Zeitung. The teens had ESTA travel authorizations, which allow short-term U.S. visits without a visa. But what many travelers don’t realize is that ESTA doesn’t guarantee entry—CBP officers have the final say. And in this case, they said no.

What followed sounds more like a prison drama than a passport check. The girls were allegedly questioned for hours, strip-searched, and placed in green prison uniforms. They claim they were held in cells with long-term detainees accused of serious crimes, forced to sleep on moldy mattresses, and warned about eating expired food.

The next morning, they were informed they’d be deported. Instead of returning to Germany, they asked to go to Japan. The German Foreign Office confirmed it assisted the girls and warned other travelers to remember: ESTA is not a free pass.

While this case is extreme, it’s not isolated. Former Canadian actress Jasmine Mooney was detained at the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this year despite carrying a new job offer and visa paperwork. She was reportedly held in ICE detention for 12 days. “There was no explanation, no warning,” she told The Guardian. “The commands came rapid-fire, one after another, too fast to process.”

She wasn’t alone. Mooney described others held in the same facility: a woman who overstayed her visa by three days, another stuck in the system for six weeks because she didn’t have her passport on her during a traffic stop.

These stories come amid a documented drop in European tourism to the U.S., despite diplomatic attempts to ease entry fears.

If you’re young, foreign, and don’t have every hotel night booked in advance, the U.S. might treat your backpacking trip like a national security threat.