Two European youth were reportedly detained by national customs officials while attempting to enter Hawaii by aircraft and were kicked out of the United States after authorities deemed their journey “suspicious. ” This is the latest in a series of incidents involving European visitors.
European citizens, Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, arrived in Hawaii on March 18 with plans to travel around the U. S. for five days as a joyful journey following high school graduation, according to the European outlet Ostsee Zeitung. They therefore set their sights on visiting California before heading north to Costa Rica in Central America.
Despite having secured an Electronic System for Travel Authorization ( ESTA ), a U. S. file that allows certain immigrants to go into the U. S. for a quick be without a card, the two ladies were questioned by U. S. Customs and Border Protection officials at the Honolulu aircraft for several days. An ESTA is never a guarantee of admission into the U. S.
“They found it cautious that we had n’t completely booked our lodging for the entire five months in Hawaii, ” Pohl told the outlet, according to a language by the New York Post.
Officials conducted strip searches and full-body images before moving Pohl and Lepere to an off-site confinement page, where they were held on slender pillows and offered food they claimed was expired.
The youths were informed the following day that they would not be admitted into the U. S. but would be returned to their home state. They requested to go to Japan.
The German Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The German authorities told the Washington Examiner last quarter that it was investigating whether U. S. immigration coverage has just shifted after three separate instances in which its people with legal papers were denied entrance at ports of entry and detained.
A German authorities national told the Washington Examiner that Berlin was in “close contact” with the U. S. state about the situations.
“The related Consulates General of the Federal Republic of Germany are aware of the situations and have been in close touch with the appropriate U. S. regulators as well as with the families of the involved people, ” the German national wrote in an email.
The three past occurrences that European authorities are investigating involve two visitors and a green card holder who were arrested while attempting to enter the U. S. within the previous two weeks.
In one example, legitimate lasting U. S. native Fabian Schmidt was detained after flying into Boston and finally transferred to a federal immigration detention center in Rhode Island earlier this month. Schmidt’s family, Astrid Senior, told WGBH that her 34-year-old boy was strip-searched and given a warm bath by customs officers at the airports.
While being detained at the airports, he fainted and was taken to the hospital before being transferred to the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confinement centre.
In the second incident, 29-year-old scar designer Jessica Brösche was detained on Jan. 25 while attempting to drive with a U. S. member companion from Tijuana in northeastern Mexico to San Diego, California.
Brösche was visiting the U. S. under the ESTA Visa Waiver Program, according to a GoFundMe website set up by a companion on her behalf. Customs officials told Brösche that she would be detained for several weeks, but she was transferred to and held at ICE’s Otay Mesa Detention Center for six months before being released and returned to Germany.
Million DO NOT HAVE A REAL ID. HERE’S WHAT TO KNOW BEFORE THE MAY DEADLINE
Lucas Sielaff, 25, entered the U. S. on a tourist card and traveled to Tijuana at the same port of entry where Brösche was arrested. On his return journey to the U. S. on Feb. 18, Sielaff was arrested and detained for three months, he recounted in an appointment with European media outlet Tages-Anzeiger.
U. S. Customs and Border Protection, the governmental agency that inspects people seeking entrance, did not return a request for comment.
