Deported German teens traveled to US under false pretenses and intended to work: Border Patrol

A pair of backpacking German teens booted from the US lied about the purpose of their trip, Customs and Border Patrol said — but the women claim US officials “twisted” their words to trump up the allegations.Maria Lepere and Charlotte Pohl, 18 and 19, arrived in Hawaii on March 18 with short-term travel permits ahead of weeks-long US trip but were detained by Border Patrol (CBP) and sent packing back to Germany within hours.“These travelers were denied entry after attempting to enter the US under false pretenses.One used a Visitor visa, the other the Visa Waiver Program,” CBP officials told The Post Monday.“Both claimed they were touring California but later admitted they intended to work — something strictly prohibited under US immigration laws for these visas.”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.The two women, recent high school graduates, had just spent five weeks in Thailand and New Zealand and were continuing on to the US and Central America as part of a global backpacking trip when they found themselves in a CBP interrogation room in Honolulu.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 said they had gone through all the necessary steps to enter and travel the US, but after hours of being held and interviewed, CBP t...