A Melbourne woman named Molly Hill has written an absolutely jaw-dropping Facebook post detailing a horror trip to Hawaii, during which she was allegedly detained in an “actual prison” after immigration officials suspected her of trying to immigrate illegally.
Hill says she left for Honolulu on Monday to visit her American boyfriend. She had a tourist visa and a return flight, but since she was planning to be away for 88 days she had quit her marketing job to vacation in unencumbered freedom.
She says she “expected to pass through customs without too much hassle” – however:
“I was taken into an interview room and had every inch of my luggage searched. They understood that I have an American boyfriend and I spent about 6 hours in and out of the interrogation rooms. In the end they were convinced I wanted to immigrate illegally because my diary had notes like “going away drinks” and “last day at work”, things I got in order before expecting to be away for 3 months.”
Yep, immigration officials went through her shit, read her diary, decided that “going away drinks” was tantamount to “leaving the country for good in order to live out my dream of being an illegal immigrant in Hawaii”, and put her in jail for the night.
Hill says the detention centre was a federal prison – “picture OITNB but with locked cells” – and on entry she was forced to undress in front of an officer and do a “mortifying” squat-and-cough routine.
After a night with convicted felons (who actually all sound pretty nice), she was taken back to the airport, allowed to call home, and made to pay $620 for a flight back to Sydney.
And you thought spending a couple days crouched over the toilet in Bali was rough.
No word from US Customs and Border Protection as of yet, but we’re all keen to see how this latest bit of wildly overzealous, paranoid nationalism gets explained away.
As for Molly, her last missive was 23 hours ago; we hope she’s home safe by now, and that at the very least she gets a Netflix series of her own out of this utter debacle.
Source: Facebook / News.com.au.
Image: Facebook / Molly Hill.
