this post was submitted on 22 Apr 2025
784 points (98.3% liked)

World News

46063 readers
2827 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.”

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] DicJacobus@lemmy.world 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I know every country has its problems and that there are desperate people everywhere.

but its very much american exceptionalism, that americans would assume people coming from a country that has infinitely more worker rights, would move to their failing state just to work.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] thorhop@sopuli.xyz 39 points 1 day ago

Look at those evil immigrants. No doubt they'll... they'll... hold on, can we use some AI to replace the stock photo with brown people? Thank you.

[–] obvs@lemmy.world 62 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When the world thinks "illegal immigration" we all think "Germans sneaking into Hawaii".

[–] Kinperor@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 day ago

They finally found the culprit for the shit state of the United State: It's all those pesky german young adults backpacking through the world and visiting Hawaii for like a few weeks or something!

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 8 points 1 day ago

Oh the horror! Not hard working people working for USA!

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 10 points 1 day ago

NGL, traveling to America right now is just too risky. Don't do it, for your own safety.

[–] rothaine@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago

Holy shit the comments on that article. I know NY Post leans right, but some of them got their noses so far up Trump's ass they're snorting small intestine

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 101 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They're lucky they were sent home instead of to an El Salvador concentration camp.

[–] pleasegoaway@lemm.ee 49 points 2 days ago (2 children)

They were the right color of skin.

[–] jimmux@programming.dev 6 points 1 day ago

I've been seeing a lot of reports lately of white people getting screwed over like this. They all had one thing in common: women traveling without male company.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It likely saved them, but being white still doesn't guarantee your safety from the US gulags.

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

are you implying that fascists might not be reliable?

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 59 points 2 days ago

Every time I've been to Cuba I show up in the airport and basically have a car rented, maybe first night in a hotel. Then we drive wherever we feel like and usually pick up a hitchhiker or two that will have a "sister" that has a room for rent.

It has almost always been clean, friendly, cheap, and a good breakfast. Rinse, repeat. I love travelling like this and have generally done this everywhere I've gone in the third world. Apparently the US doesn't even measure up to third world.

[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 128 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

Both say they were handcuffed and sent to a detention center, which they claimed was more like a prison.

“We were searched with metal detectors, our entire bodies were scanned, and we had to stand naked in front of the police officers and were looked through,” Pohl said. “Then we were given green prison clothes and put in a prison cell with serious criminals.”

Among them was someone who had spent 18 years behind bars for murder, the women said, and they were left sleeping in a double cell with tiny barred windows and metal bunks with moldy mattresses.

I really want to know what changed that made the above happen much more often.

In December, if Customs had concerns about two teenagers trying to sneak into the US to work on a travel visa, where did they go? How was it handled? Because it feels like overkill and probably much more expensive than what we used to do.

Why are we sending backpacking teenagers with visa concerns to the same place as a murderer?

Why are they being strip searched like they were drug smugglers?

But the women — who were planning to continue on to Los Angeles and then Costa Rica after Hawaii — insisted they were interrogated by CBP for hours, and that transcripts show their words were “twisted” and outright falsified.

“They contained sentences we didn’t actually say,” Pohl said of interrogation transcripts they were sent home with.

“They twisted it to make it seem as if we admitted that we wanted to work illegally in the US,” she told the German outlet Ostee Zeitung.

And then this feels like the after-the-fact coverup. Whatever they held them on was super flimsy, so they tried to make it sound worse when they realized this was going to hit the news.

[–] JeremyHuntQW12@lemmy.world 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

This is pretty standard treatment. There are only a limited number of holding cells in an airport, moslty for men.

If there is no returning flight that day they are sent to a local jail (known as a remand centre outside of the US) and stripping and searching is standard at those places.

The women said that they were going to do work in the US.

[–] Absaroka@lemmy.world 1 points 17 hours ago

The women said “They twisted it to make it seem as if we admitted that we wanted to work illegally in the US.”

[–] Bassman1805@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Per that last bit, I'm guessing they never had a lawyer present. Would make any of those fabricated statements null and void, if the constitution meant anything.

[–] Jamablaya@lemmy.today 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The news decided to pay attention, that's what changed, not the reality.

[–] fuck_u_spez_in_particular@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean yeah for non-white people maybe. But teenage German girls, that's a novum

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] thoralf@discuss.tchncs.de 217 points 2 days ago (23 children)

I don’t get it. Why would anyone still travel to the US without being forced to?

[–] Infernal_pizza@lemm.ee 132 points 2 days ago (19 children)

There's a significant amount of the US population who still don't realise how bad things are, you really expect everyone outside the US to be any better?

load more comments (19 replies)
load more comments (22 replies)
[–] GoodOleAmerika@lemmy.world 70 points 2 days ago (15 children)

This has been happening for a long time. It's just that they are from first world country. Welcome to how it feels to be from a third world country. Not only US but I have been stopped at Munich and Frankfurt airport and thoroughly scanned and document checked while everyone just walk through security.

[–] breezeblock@lemm.ee 13 points 2 days ago

You're saying you've been arrested, handcuffed, strip searched, sent to jail and then deported -- and that's been happening for a long time?

The people just walking were checked at departure and are local citizens.

[–] vithigar@lemmy.ca 38 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm from Canada and had to explain to border officers what my accommodations and means of personal support would be for a two week stay in the US. I was almost denied entry because I wasn't carrying sufficient cash on hand.

That was almost twenty years ago.

load more comments (13 replies)

I travelled a lot and never pre booked more than the first night

[–] boaratio@lemmy.world 64 points 2 days ago (17 children)

The most shocking thing about this is the five weeks. Like as Americans we have no clue how the rest of the world lives. The entire country of France stops working for 6 weeks in the summer. And we fight to get 2 weeks if we're lucky.

[–] vorpuni@jlai.lu 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

It's not the entire country that stops working but there's indeed a significant reduction. If you don't have children you'd have to be crazy to take time off work during the school holidays in summer (and also like the heat if you're going somewhere in France because nowhere has mild temperatures anymore).

The legal minimum for full time jobs is 5 weeks but most people have more since they have jobs where you get extra rest time since you work more than 35h/week. Some affluent French people go skiing 2-3 times a year for a week or two each time and then also take two weeks off in summer, all paid.

I used to have 56 paid days off (that's 11 weeks because Saturday and Sunday didn't count) each year because I worked a lot more than the legally mandated hours and I had advantageous time credit for showing up early and leaving late and 4 days extra because I never took time off during school holidays (incentive to keep the shifts fully staffed). The pay was shit but at least I could go on trips all the time. I did end up getting a lot of those days paid instead because I didn't have enough money to travel all the time and I couldn't be bothered to stay home.

With this much time off our productivity was still very good, everything was timed and we always went above 100% of targets and long-term projects always done early.

Blue collar work in the USA looks like a scam in comparison: working the same job I would have had less purchasing power (sure the numbers entering your bank account are higher, but the health insurance alone cancels it out), more working hours and a lot less paid leave.

load more comments (16 replies)
[–] mapmyhike@lemmy.world 79 points 2 days ago (4 children)

"We wanted to travel spontaneously."

This is how my sister and I do our road trips. We get in the car and drive until we are tired then search for a hotel. If we find a town we like we might stop there even if the day is young.

[–] AidsKitty@lemmy.world 29 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I saw this in an episode of border patrol Canada when a guy was coming to help his friend in Canada do yard work\landscaping. The officers said he was trying to take a Canadian job, work illegally, and was barred from entering the country.

[–] Bassman1805@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

A relative of mine just had a baby, and her mom came from out-of country to meet her grandchild and help mom and dad in those first crazy weeks with a newborn.

But when she told CBP that she was "coming to help her daughter with the new baby" she got detailed and questioned for 2 hours. Eventually they let her through but they were really trying to pin her coming to work illegally on a tourism visa.

If you or a loved one are in a similar situation, just say you're "visiting family". Apparently it's a legal gray area in this shithole to help your child take care of a newborn.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] primemagnus@lemmy.ca 19 points 2 days ago

My buddy had the same deal going into the US. Was going to take a month off and visit and while there was going to help reno his backyard. Just lifting and hammering. Another body.

Customs said literally the exact same thing to him (he was taking a job from an American) and said he could not allow entry. He tried to make it happen a year later and customs grilled him but let him enter that time.

[–] astutemural@midwest.social 32 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oh no! This dastardly Europeans wanted to come here and work! How dare they! Deport them!

This country was cooked a long time ago.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 31 points 2 days ago (2 children)

From another story about the event, it wasn't even like odd jobs for a host, it was small job remote work for people in Germany and Asia. Stuff they would be doing at home and just kept doing during downtime on a long vacation.

Don't reply to any business emails while lounging by the pool, you need a work visa for that!

[–] Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is a much, much better article. I'm surprised at the NYPost's shoddy quality (though I don't know much about them); the headline especially feels misleading. Thanks for sharing a better source.

[–] Zaktor@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago

The NYPost is a crappy conservative tabloid. I don't know why people keep posting stories from it.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›