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