I feel safer now
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Keeping dangerous people out of America.
Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, arrived in Honolulu from Auckland with plans to explore Hawaii before continuing to California and Costa Rica. However, their flexible travel style — including a lack of pre-booked lodging for their planned five-week Hawaii stay — raised red flags for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Despite having ESTA travel authorization, the two were accused of potential illegal work intentions, a common concern for border officials screening young travelers without fixed plans.
The German Foreign Office later reminded travelers that ESTA approval does not guarantee entry to the U.S. — a decision always left to border officials at the point of arrival.
What happens when travelers get detained in Hawaii.
The travelers described their detention experience as shocking and surreal.
After hours of questioning at Honolulu Airport, they said they were placed in handcuffs, loaded into a transport vehicle, and brought to what they later learned was a deportation detention facility.
There, they reported being subjected to full-body scans, strip searches, and issued green prison uniforms. They were placed in a holding cell overnight alongside long-term detainees, including individuals accused of serious crimes.
Conditions described included sleeping on thin, moldy mattresses, using rudimentary toilets, and being warned by guards to avoid expired food.
The following morning, the travelers were escorted back to Honolulu Airport in handcuffs and deported — not to Germany, but to Japan, at their request, avoiding a longer return trip to New Zealand.
https://beatofhawaii.com/why-these-hawaii-travelers-were-jailed-and-deported/
And a bit more info from the Independent:
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A U.S. citizen was arrested in Florida for allegedly being in the country illegally and held for pickup by immigration authorities even after his mother showed a judge her son’s birth certificate and the judge dismissed charges.
https://apnews.com/article/us-citizen-held-ice-florida-law-4b5f5d9c754b56c87d1d8b39dfedfc6c
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The arrest of an immigrant woman originally from Hong Kong by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sent shockwaves through a small Missouri town that overwhelmingly backed U.S. President Donald Trump in the last presidential election.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/ming-li-hui-immigration-trump-deportation
TNR interview with Carol:
https://newrepublic.com/article/195959/transcript-trump-arrest-immigrant-shocks-small-maga-town
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Volleyball, band, honor student, friendliest kid in the school---disappeared.
https://www.wcvb.com/article/milford-student-detained-by-ice-massachusetts/64935176
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I don't think I can handle feeling so secure.
For 55-year-old U.S. Army veteran Sae Joon Park, this was the hardest moment of his life. Not getting shot in combat. Not the years battling post-traumatic stress disorder or addiction. Not prison. It was leaving the U.S., a country he called home for nearly five decades.
On Monday, Park, a green-card holder, self-deported to South Korea. His removal order was the result of charges related to drug possession and failure to appear in court from over 15 years ago — offenses that, he said, stemmed from years of untreated PTSD.
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/24/g-s1-74036/trump-ice-self-deportation-army-veteran-hawaii
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Iranian immigrant who has lived in New Orleans nearly 50 years arrested outside Lakeview home
The arrest highlights how Trump's immigration crackdown has ensnared people who were long allowed to stay in the U.S. as their cases unfolded.A familiar pattern
Witnesses described Kashanian's arrest as following a familiar pattern under Trump's immigration crackdown — plainclothes agents, wearing body armor but without identifiable agency insignia, handcuffing people before placing them into unmarked vehicles and transporting them to detention facilities.. -
Thomas, a 35-year-old tech worker and father of three from Ireland, came to West Virginia to visit his girlfriend last fall. It was one of many trips he had taken to the US, and he was authorized to travel under a visa waiver program that allows tourists to stay in the country for 90 days.
He had planned to return to Ireland in December, but was briefly unable to fly due to a health issue, his medical records show. He was only three days overdue to leave the US when an encounter with police landed him in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody.
From there, what should have been a minor incident became a nightmarish ordeal: he was detained by Ice in three different facilities, ultimately spending roughly 100 days behind bars with little understanding of why he was being held – or when he’d get out.
a man sits on a pickup truck
Farm worker who died after California Ice raid was ‘hardworking and innocent’, family says
“Nobody is safe from the system if they get pulled into it,” said Thomas, in a recent interview from his home in Ireland, a few months after his release. Thomas asked to be identified by a nickname out of fear of facing further consequences with US immigration authorities.
Despite immediately agreeing to deportation when he was first arrested, Thomas remained in Ice detention after Donald Trump took office and dramatically ramped up immigration arrests. Amid increased overcrowding in detention, Thomas was forced to spend part of his time in custody in a federal prison for criminal defendants, even though he was being held on an immigration violation.
Thomas was sent back to Ireland in March and was told he was banned from entering the US for 10 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/15/irish-tourist-ice-detention
