Australian teen strip-searched and held in US jail for 10 days after being denied common visa waiver

An Australian teenager who travelled to the US for a job interview was strip-searched and held in a federal prison for 10 days, including eight confined to his cell, after he was deemed ineligible for a common holiday travel program.

The 19-year-old, who had never travelled on a plane before, was denied contact with his family in Australia throughout the ordeal. He was supposed to be sent back to Australia after two days, but was held for another eight so he could go before a judge, after an immigration officer said he had resisted returning to Australia.

When he was finally placed on a flight to Australia, it landed in Melbourne, more than 750km from his home in Bathurst, New South Wales.

He travelled on the visa waiver program, which allows visitors from Australia and 39 other countries to travel to the US for no more than 90 days for a holiday or to conduct business meetings, so long as other entry requirements are met.

Carter was pulled in for an interview with immigration officials after he told customs officers at the airport in Honolulu that he had travelled to the US for a job interview, and that he hoped to return to live and work in the country.

In the interview, a transcript of which has been seen by Guardian Australia, Carter confirmed he had booked a return flight and had money to support himself, and that he planned to interview for a job as a mechanic and as a cashier at a Wyoming supermarket.

Carter was initially told he would be held in a federal detention centre for two days and put on a flight back to Sydney on Wednesday 17 August.

On the Wednesday he received a phone call from a person from the Australian consulate, who said they had been in contact with his parents and that he would go before a federal judge on the Friday to confirm his willingness to return to Australia. On Friday, he was told that the hearing had been delayed until Monday.

That was a misinterpretation of what Carter, tired and stressed after a 10-hour flight, had meant by saying he did not want to return home, Benetta Carter said.

Carter then spent two days in the general population of the prison but still could not contact his family, as the phone card given to him by prison staff did not work. He was taken to the airport and placed on a Jetstar flight to Australia on Wednesday 24 August. It was only as immigration staff brought him to the departure gate that he realised the flight was destined for Melbourne not Sydney.

He borrowed a phone from another passenger after landing in Melbourne and was able to book a flight to Sydney to meet his parents, who had been told by consulate officials that he would be arriving on a direct flight from Hawaii to Sydney that night.

The Guardian has previously reported on cases where Australian citizens were detained and deported from the US after failing to satisfy authorities they met the requirements of the visa waiver scheme, including one woman who was asked about her abortion history by a border official.

The US Customs and Border Protection service was contacted for comment.