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Norwegian tourist claims he was 'strip searched' before being denied entry to US over JD Vance meme on phone
By Rahmah Ghazali
Live Reporter
www.nationalworld.com
Published 24th Jun 2025, 18:15 BST
A 21-year-old Norwegian man says he was denied entry into the US after border agents found an edited meme of US vice-president J.D. Vance on his phone.
According to a report by Norwegian newspaper Nordlys, Mads Mikkelsen (not the actor of the same name) had planned a two-month holiday across the US to visit friends and explore national parks. However, upon landing at Newark Liberty International Airport, he says he was immediately detained by border officials.
Mikkelsen told Nordlys that he was questioned about “smuggling and extremism,” despite having no criminal record or prior issues with US immigration. He said agents then asked to search his phone, which, as a foreign national, he was compelled to allow under US customs regulations.
Among the images on his phone were a photo of a wooden pipe he had crafted and an edited image depicting J.D. Vance as a chubby child - part of a meme trend that circulated online earlier this year as he took office. Mikkelsen claimed that after these images were discovered, the situation escalated.
He alleges that he was then strip-searched, fingerprinted, had blood samples taken, and was held for five hours before being put on a flight back to Norway.
As of now, US Customs and Border Protection has not publicly commented on the incident. There is no official indication that memes or satirical images are grounds for inadmissibility under US law, but CBP officers do have broad discretion in denying entry.
This comes as an Australian was writer was denied entry into the the county after raising concerns about content found on his device.
Alistair Kitchen, 33. said he was deported after arriving in the US on June 12. He was travelling from Melbourne to New York to visit friends when he was pulled aside during a layover at Los Angeles International Airport. He was held for 12 hours, had his phone confiscated, and was ultimately sent back to Melbourne.
According to Kitchen, he was refused entry because of his political views and previous reporting on pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. “I began to think about what precautions I should take,” he wrote in The New Yorker, citing widespread reports of tourists being detained at the US border. “I opted against taking a burner phone… believing it would provoke suspicion, and simply decided to give my phone and social media a superficial clean.”
The US Department of Homeland Security has rejected Kitchen’s claim, calling it “unequivocally false.”
