An Australian woman
hoping to enjoy time with her Honolulu boyfriend instead spent her 26th birthday in a cell at the Federal Detention Center after immigration officials apparently became convinced that she intended to stay here longer than the 88 days she had been allowed.
“My Hawaii dream turned into a nightmare,” Molly Hill said in a Facebook posting Wednesday that has since gone viral.
Hill, of Melbourne, said that when she arrived Monday at Honolulu International Airport, she was interrogated by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents for more than seven hours, had her belongings rummaged through, was handcuffed and then transported to the detention center, where she was strip-searched, ordered to squat and cough, and spent a sleepless night in a jail cell.
On Tuesday, Hill was sent back to the airport, where she paid $626 for a ticket to Sydney. After a 10-1/2-hour flight, she had to board another plane back home to Melbourne.
She never did meet up with boyfriend Ross Maidl, who waited at the airport customs area for her and was questioned by customs officers but never told what was happening, Hill told the
Honolulu Star-Advertiser during a Facebook telephone interview Friday.
Hill said she had been approved to travel for business or tourism in the United States for up to 90 days through the Visa Waiver Program, an agreement among 38 countries.
She showed customs agents her itinerary listing a return flight to Melbourne in 88 days, Hill said. “My return trip was with the same airline, so it was all on the same printout … and it was all fully paid for in advance,” she said. “I thought that would be the main piece of evidence to show I had every intention of coming back home.”
Hill said she’s not sure why she was flagged other than that this was her third trip to Hawaii in nine months, and she’d quit her job.
Customs officers never directly told her they believed she was intending to stay permanently, but suggested so “in a roundabout way” by telling her it did not appear she had many ties to Australia.
That baffled her, she said. “Virtually all of my family and friends are in Australia, and my only tie to the U.S. is Ross. That seemed a little bit strange.”
Hill said she was told she was sent to the detention center because there were no flights to Australia on Monday evening.
A local customs representative said Friday afternoon that he was told to refer media inquiries to a mainland-
based public information office, which did not respond to the Star-Advertiser.
But in a statement to the online site BuzzFeed News, Customs said the agency “acted with respect, integrity and according to federal law” when dealing with Hill. “Officers found that Hill presented conflicting information and was determined to be inadmissible” through
the Visa Waiver Program
and that she would need to
receive a full visa to be able to return to the U.S., according to the statement to
BuzzFeed News.
Hill said she and Maidl met in Hawaii last fall when she was here for the wedding of two Australian friends. This trip was designed to test the possibility of cohabiting since they have never been together for more than three weeks, she said.
Since returning to Melbourne, Hill said she’s been spending time at her parents’ house and a friend’s “catching up on sleep and not much else.”
