In April 2025, claims (archived) circulated online that U.S. border authorities detained and deported two German tourists in Hawaii.
One X user, whose post had more than 4 million views at the time of this writing, wrote: "2 female German tourists, 18 and 19 y.o., were detained in Honolulu for a terrible 'crime' of not pre-booking a hotel for their trip. Before deportation, they had to spend the night at the detention center. News like that will certainly do wonders for Hawaiian tourism industry"
The claim circulated across X (archived), Facebook (archived), Threads (archived), TikTok (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers also emailed to ask whether the claim was true.
The claim originated from German media reports about Charlotte Pohl and Marie Lepère, then 19 and 18, respectively, whom border officials reportedly stopped while they were attempting to enter the U.S. in Hawaii on March 18, 2025. According to German media reports, border police handcuffed and strip-searched the women before detaining them overnight and eventually deporting them to Japan at their own request.
The CBP did not confirm it detained the women, and it said they were "denied entry" rather than deported. Pohl and Lepère told Snopes that paperwork issued by U.S. authorities said the women were being "removed" from from the U.S. The women also told two German news outlets and Snopes that they both had ESTAs — a travel authorization under the Visa Waiver Program — but the CBP said one of the women had a visitor visa.
CBP Assistant Commissioner Hilton Beckham said the pair were denied entry, not deported, and that:
These travelers were denied entry after attempting to enter the U.S. under false pretenses. One used a Visitor visa, the other the Visa Waiver Program. Both claimed they were touring California but later admitted they intended to work—something strictly prohibited under U.S. immigration laws for these visas.
A spokesperson from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, "As soon as the Federal Foreign Office received word of this case, our Honorary Consul in Honolulu and our Consulate General in San Francisco took over consular support. We kindly ask you for your understanding, that we cannot share anymore detailed information on this case."
Breaking down claims about pair's CBP encounter
Pohl and Lepère told German media that border officials first became suspicious about the duration of the women's trip, their finances and that they had not booked accommodation for the entirety of their planned five-week stay. Recounting their immigration experience, Pohl told the German news website Stern.de:
When it was our turn, the border official checked our passports, we had to give fingerprints, a photo was taken — the usual procedure. And then the questions started: Where we were staying, what our route plans were, where we had been before and, above all, how we were financing the trip. We explained everything and also offered to show everything: the booking for the first accommodation, bank statements, our return flight tickets. But the officer wasn't interested at all and sent us straight to an interrogation room.
From there, the women told Stern.de, officials interrogated them, handcuffed them and sent them to what they described as a prison near the airport.
It was not possible to independently confirm Pohl and Lepère's main claim that they were detained overnight by CBP. Lepère told Snopes she did not remember the name of the prison the women were detained at. The CBP statement said the travelers were denied entry, but not that they were detained, and the organization declined to comment further.
A report in Die Ostsee-Zeitung, a German-language newspaper based in Rostock where Pohl and Lepère live, included the pair's mug shots and registration numbers. Searches by name and the numbers listed on Pohl and Lepère's documentation did not reveal inmate records on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detainee Locator. That is because the system does not register inmates held for less than 48 hours.
Searches on VINE, a third-party inmate information database, and the Federal Bureau of Prison's database using Pohl and Lepère's names also revealed no results.
According to Pohl and Lepère's account to Die Ostsee-Zeitung, the morning after they were detained, officers took them back the airport in handcuffs and put them on a flight to Japan, a destination they had chosen to travel on to rather than being sent back to New Zealand, where they had originally arrived from.
Once in Japan, the pair were able to view paperwork issued by U.S. authorities, which they had signed immediately after the interrogations took place and without time to properly read them through, according to Pohl. Lepère told Snopes they had never read their statements but the CBP asked them to sign paperwork saying that they had.
Lepère said: "On the paperwork it said that we have read the pages and that we sign it as it's the truth with our signature — but we were never given the opportunity to read it."
In its statement, the CBP said it denied entry to the women after they "admitted" they intended to work in the U.S., something not permitted on their visas. However, in Die Ostsee-Zeitung's report, Pohl accused U.S. border officials of adding to or altering what the pair told officials.
"There were sentences in there that we didn't say at all," Pohl told Die Ostsee-Zeitung, "They made it sound like we had admitted that we wanted to work illegally in the USA."
Lepère told Stern.de:
Some of the answers were really falsified. For example, when asked why I wanted to go to the USA, I answered: "To travel and to visit my family in California." In the end, the paper said: "Work for accommodation and extra pocket money." It reads as if we wanted to work illegally in the USA, which we never said because it was never our intention.
The CBP did not reply when asked about this allegation.
Additionally, according to Die Ostsee-Zeitung and an interview in Stern.de, the women both had valid Electronic System for Travel Authorization visa waivers. A successful ESTA application allows eligible passengers to travel to the U.S., though admissibility — whether they will be let in — is still determined by CBP officers at the border.
However, the CBP statement claimed one woman used a visitor visa and the other the Visa Waiver Program to travel to the U.S. Pohl and Lepère told Snopes they both had valid ESTAs that they used to travel to the U.S.
Snopes previously reported on claims that a British tourist was detained by ICE after being refused entry into the U.S.
DeepL.com provided translations for Pohl and Lepère's quotes that they originally gave in German.