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.”
On the one hand, I don’t doubt it’s gotten worse. On the other hand, I’ve always heard stories about us immigrations being unreasonable, entirely humorless, and possibly detaing you or sending you back for the smallest mistake or omission.
I’ve never once heard about German teenagers being strip searched because they had a bad answer about whether they would do any work during their vacation.