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.”
They were teenagers who had spent the last 5 weeks traveling the world. They probably just didn’t think keeping up with developments in the US was important. That plus a healthy dose of white privilege (and probably a wealthy background given that they were teenagers on a world tour) telling them oppression was something that happens to other people.
Agreed. As a white German woman myself, I can tell you that we are very used to being above any suspicion. I have been waved on in every traffic control and border check I’ve ever been in.
Also the German passport is one of the strongest in the world, we can basically go wherever we want when travelling. And now suddenly the US of all places is a country we have to be cautious in.
This is of course a very privileged position to be in, but they are teenagers, they probably haven’t had to think about that until now.