Latest news with #MadsMikkelsen
The Guardian
an hour ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Will I get deported for sharing this meme of JD Vance?
I have a very important public service announcement to make. Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, make fun of Vice-President JD Vance by sharing one of the millions of unflattering memes dedicated to him. Don't you dare chuckle at the images of him looking like the 'lollipop kid' in Shrek (the resemblance is uncanny) or a chicken nugget. And, whatever you do, do not share the meme that you can find here, where he looks like a big bald baby. You risk hurting the poor man's feelings and, also, you might get kicked out of the country. So says a 21-year-old Norwegian called Mads Mikkelsen, anyway. Mikkelsen recently accused American border officials of denying him entry into the US because he had a meme of a bloated baby Vance saved on his phone. Mikkelsen, who had travelled to the US to visit friends, told the Norwegian paper Nordlys that immigration officers at Newark airport interrogated him, forced him to give fingerprints and blood samples, and went through his phone. After they found the Vance meme, as well as a picture of Mikkelsen holding a homemade wooden pipe, they sent him home. 'Both pictures had been automatically saved to my camera roll from a chat app, but I really didn't think that these innocent pictures would put a stop to my entry into the country,' Mikkelsen told Nordlys. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has rejected Mikkelsen's claim that he was kicked out of the country for disrespecting the vice-president. 'FACT CHECK. Claims that Mads Mikkelsen was denied entry because of a meme are unequivocally FALSE,' they posted on Facebook earlier in the week. 'TRUTH: Mikkelsen was refused entry into the US for his admitted drug use.' A homeland security assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, also called the story 'BS' in a post on X. Mikkelsen, meanwhile, insisted to the fact-checking website Snopes that the meme played a role in getting him denied entry. The 21-year-old claimed border officials told him he was getting sent home because of 'extremist propaganda [the meme] and narcotic paraphernalia'. However, that claim hasn't been verified. We may never know if the Vance meme really did play a role in getting Mikkelsen kicked out of the country. While I don't normally side with border officials, one imagines the pipe picture was probably the actual culprit. Still, the story, which made headlines around the world, won't help America's tourism industry. International visitors are staying out of the US after a spate of stories about tourists getting sent to Ice detention centers without any explanation. The World Travel & Tourism Council has said the country could lose $12.5bn in international visitor spending this year. The story has also reignited interest in JD Vance memes, which have been circulating for months now, peaking at end of February after the vice-president scolded Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an exchange that launched a million memes. Indeed, the Irish lawmaker Ivana Bacik recently held up the Vance baby meme while speaking in the Irish parliament about the Mikkelsen story. While claims that making fun of Mr Hillbilly Elegy may get you deported might be exaggerated, the fact that so many people immediately believed Mikkelsen's claims is a sign of just how badly the US's international image has been damaged and how dystopian the country has become. The US is heading very quickly towards authoritarianism. It is cracking down on dissent and protest. Book banning has surged and the Trump administration has instructed the Department of Education to end their investigations into these bans, calling them a 'hoax'. Free speech rights are being shredded. And the people responsible for all this? They're not evil geniuses, they're embarrassing dweebs with massively meme-able faces. 'I knew that one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down,' Rebecca Shaw said in a Guardian piece earlier this year. 'What I didn't expect, and don't think I could have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be.' 'The Alliance for Immigrant Survivors, a national network of advocates for those hurt by domestic violence, found that 75% of the 170 advocates they surveyed across the country said the immigrants they serve fear they'll face arrest or deportation if they contact authorities,' reports USA Today. Meanwhile the Fox News host Jesse Waters seems to think all this is hilarious. 'I bet a bunch of guys that are dating illegal alien Spanish girls are like Ice, here's the address! She hasn't been very good,' Watters recently said. In related news, a man was recently arrested for allegedly impersonating an Ice officer and sexually assaulting a woman, saying he'd deport her if she didn't comply. Mark Rutte made a weird statement in which he referred to Trump as 'Daddy' and then quickly walked it back. Speaking at an office hours event, the Michigan representative Karl Bohnak (a Republican), said 'I don't' after a constituent asked him, 'So you don't support a woman's autonomy over her own body?' The case, Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, 'is part of a longstanding effort by anti-abortion activists to 'defund' Planned Parenthood by cutting it out of Medicaid', the Guardian reports. 'Of the 2.4 million people treated at Planned Parenthood each year, almost half use Medicaid.' The prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, told his Facebook followers that he was prepared to expose himself to the head of the Armenian church, to prove they were wrong that he had been circumcised. This is just the latest development in an ongoing spat between Pashinyan and the head of the Armenian Apostolic church. And they say women are too emotional to lead! Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy Get Arwa Mahdawi's weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality after newsletter promotion As the title suggests, the game involves a male protagonist who is looking to get revenge on 'gold-digging' women. After a lot of controversy it's been renamed Emotional Fraud Simulator, but the content is the same. 'I cannot go into further detail about the number of victims in the case beyond confirming that it is a double-digit number,' the Oslo police attorney said. Mel Owens, a 66-year-old former NFL player, who is the new star of ABC's senior-focused dating show, has said he is only looking to date women between 45 and 60. 'If they're 60 or over, I'm cutting them.'' The handful of attenders included a local podcast host who praised the city's lack of Black residents. '[A] job title isn't everything, and it's more important to stay true to your values,' Judge Karen Ortiz, who worked in the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's New York office, said. That's according to a brilliant advertising campaign which aimed to destigmatise herpes via a spoof tourism advertisement. Israeli officers and soldiers said that they were ordered to fire at unarmed civilians waiting for humanitarian aid, Haaretz reports. Here's something to mews about: is it disgusting to kiss your partner after kissing your cat? You still have time to vote on this very im-paw-tant question via a Guardian poll.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Will I get deported for sharing this meme of JD Vance?
I have a very important public service announcement to make. Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, make fun of Vice-President JD Vance by sharing one of the millions of unflattering memes dedicated to him. Don't you dare chuckle at the images of him looking like the 'lollipop kid' in Shrek (the resemblance is uncanny) or a chicken nugget. And, whatever you do, do not share the meme that you can find here, where he looks like a big bald baby. You risk hurting the poor man's feelings and, also, you might get kicked out of the country. So says a 21-year-old Norwegian called Mads Mikkelsen, anyway. Mikkelsen recently accused American border officials of denying him entry into the US because he had a meme of a bloated baby Vance saved on his phone. Mikkelsen, who had travelled to the US to visit friends, told the Norwegian paper Nordlys that immigration officers at Newark airport interrogated him, forced him to give fingerprints and blood samples, and went through his phone. After they found the Vance meme, as well as a picture of Mikkelsen holding a homemade wooden pipe, they sent him home. 'Both pictures had been automatically saved to my camera roll from a chat app, but I really didn't think that these innocent pictures would put a stop to my entry into the country,' Mikkelsen told Nordlys. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has rejected Mikkelsen's claim that he was kicked out of the country for disrespecting the vice-president. 'FACT CHECK. Claims that Mads Mikkelsen was denied entry because of a meme are unequivocally FALSE,' they posted on Facebook earlier in the week. 'TRUTH: Mikkelsen was refused entry into the US for his admitted drug use.' A homeland security assistant secretary, Tricia McLaughlin, also called the story 'BS' in a post on X. Mikkelsen, meanwhile, insisted to the fact-checking website Snopes that the meme played a role in getting him denied entry. The 21-year-old claimed border officials told him he was getting sent home because of 'extremist propaganda [the meme] and narcotic paraphernalia'. However, that claim hasn't been verified. We may never know if the Vance meme really did play a role in getting Mikkelsen kicked out of the country. While I don't normally side with border officials, one imagines the pipe picture was probably the actual culprit. Still, the story, which made headlines around the world, won't help America's tourism industry. International visitors are staying out of the US after a spate of stories about tourists getting sent to Ice detention centers without any explanation. The World Travel & Tourism Council has said the country could lose $12.5bn in international visitor spending this year. The story has also reignited interest in JD Vance memes, which have been circulating for months now, peaking at end of February after the vice-president scolded Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an exchange that launched a million memes. Indeed, the Irish lawmaker Ivana Bacik recently held up the Vance baby meme while speaking in the Irish parliament about the Mikkelsen story. While claims that making fun of Mr Hillbilly Elegy may get you deported might be exaggerated, the fact that so many people immediately believed Mikkelsen's claims is a sign of just how badly the US's international image has been damaged and how dystopian the country has become. The US is heading very quickly towards authoritarianism. It is cracking down on dissent and protest. Book banning has surged and the Trump administration has instructed the Department of Education to end their investigations into these bans, calling them a 'hoax'. Free speech rights are being shredded. And the people responsible for all this? They're not evil geniuses, they're embarrassing dweebs with massively meme-able faces. 'I knew that one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down,' Rebecca Shaw said in a Guardian piece earlier this year. 'What I didn't expect, and don't think I could have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be.' 'The Alliance for Immigrant Survivors, a national network of advocates for those hurt by domestic violence, found that 75% of the 170 advocates they surveyed across the country said the immigrants they serve fear they'll face arrest or deportation if they contact authorities,' reports USA Today. Meanwhile the Fox News host Jesse Waters seems to think all this is hilarious. 'I bet a bunch of guys that are dating illegal alien Spanish girls are like Ice, here's the address! She hasn't been very good,' Watters recently said. In related news, a man was recently arrested for allegedly impersonating an Ice officer and sexually assaulting a woman, saying he'd deport her if she didn't comply. Mark Rutte made a weird statement in which he referred to Trump as 'Daddy' and then quickly walked it back. Speaking at an office hours event, the Michigan representative Karl Bohnak (a Republican), said 'I don't' after a constituent asked him, 'So you don't support a woman's autonomy over her own body?' The case, Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, 'is part of a longstanding effort by anti-abortion activists to 'defund' Planned Parenthood by cutting it out of Medicaid', the Guardian reports. 'Of the 2.4 million people treated at Planned Parenthood each year, almost half use Medicaid.' The prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, told his Facebook followers that he was prepared to expose himself to the head of the Armenian church, to prove they were wrong that he had been circumcised. This is just the latest development in an ongoing spat between Pashinyan and the head of the Armenian Apostolic church. And they say women are too emotional to lead! Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy Get Arwa Mahdawi's weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality after newsletter promotion As the title suggests, the game involves a male protagonist who is looking to get revenge on 'gold-digging' women. After a lot of controversy it's been renamed Emotional Fraud Simulator, but the content is the same. 'I cannot go into further detail about the number of victims in the case beyond confirming that it is a double-digit number,' the Oslo police attorney said. Mel Owens, a 66-year-old former NFL player, who is the new star of ABC's senior-focused dating show, has said he is only looking to date women between 45 and 60. 'If they're 60 or over, I'm cutting them.'' The handful of attenders included a local podcast host who praised the city's lack of Black residents. '[A] job title isn't everything, and it's more important to stay true to your values,' Judge Karen Ortiz, who worked in the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's New York office, said. That's according to a brilliant advertising campaign which aimed to destigmatise herpes via a spoof tourism advertisement. Israeli officers and soldiers said that they were ordered to fire at unarmed civilians waiting for humanitarian aid, Haaretz reports. Here's something to mews about: is it disgusting to kiss your partner after kissing your cat? You still have time to vote on this very im-paw-tant question via a Guardian poll.
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First Post
3 hours ago
- Politics
- First Post
Did US kick out a tourist over JD Vance meme?
A Norwegian traveller has claimed he was denied entry into the United States after immigration agents found a meme of Vice President JD Vance on his phone. As his accusations went viral, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) cleared the air, saying the 21-year-old was not thrown out for 'political reasons' read more A tourist claimed he was not allowed to enter the US over a meme on Vice President JD Vance. File Photo/Reuters Is the United States denying entry to foreigners due to political memes? The bizarre question arose after a Norwegian traveller claimed he was stopped from entering America as immigration agents took objection to a doctored photo of a bald US Vice President JD Vance on his phone. The claims were soon picked up by the media and blew up. As the story grabbed eyeballs around the world, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a clarification. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Let's take a closer look. Was tourist not allowed into US over Vance meme? A Norwegian tourist claimed he was denied entry into the US after authorities found a meme of JD Vance on his phone at New Jersey's Newark Liberty International Airport on June 11. His accusation was first reported by Norwegian news outlet Nordlys. Mads Mikkelsen, 21, told the local newspaper upon his return that the US officials had threatened to fine him $5,000 (Rs 4.27 lakh) or imprison him for five years if he refused to provide them with his phone password. The Norwegian tourist complied with their demand and unlocked his phone, allowing agents to go through the phone. He said that was when they spotted the Vance meme. Mikkelsen told BBC, 'The agent seemed to be very antagonised by the image. He asked me why I had it saved on my phone.' The young man said he explained to them that it was only a meme, but the agent, he said, replied: 'It's very clearly a piece of dangerous extremist propaganda'. Mikkelsen said he was denied entry into the US after the CBP agents looked into his phone and sent him back to Norway. US rejects tourist's claim As the Norwegian traveller's claims drew global attention, the US Customs and Border Patrol and its umbrella Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have jumped in to address the reports. Issuing a 'fact check' on X, the CBP wrote: 'Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use.' Fact Check: FALSE Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use. — CBP (@CBP) June 24, 2025 STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Homeland Security deputy secretary Tricia McLaughlin called the story 'false' and 'BS' in a post on X. She also insisted that Mikkelsen was not allowed entry into the US after he admitted to using drugs. In a post on Facebook, Homeland Security said, 'FACT CHECK. Claims that Mads Mikkelsen was denied entry because of a meme are unequivocally FALSE.' 'TRUTH: Mikkelsen was refused entry into the US for his admitted drug use. Only those who respect our laws and follow our rules will be welcomed into our country.' 'Political reasons' were not to blame either, CBP claimed on X. Mikkelsen has admitted that the US agents came across a second photo of a wooden weed pipe. He told Nordlys that when questioned, he told them that he had tried marijuana once in Germany and once in New Mexico. He said he did not believe that was relevant, as the drug was legal in both places. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Mikkelsen, not to be confused with Danish actor of the same name, said he was also questioned about drug smuggling, terror plots, and right-wing extremism, as per the Independent report. The Norwegian youth claimed that the agents forced him to provide a blood sample. The episode has left a bad taste in his mouth. Mikkelsen said, 'I would not return while the current government is in power.' Can US agents check phones at borders? Border officers in the US are authorised to look into phones, laptops and other electronic devices at ports of entry. 'These searches have been used to identify and combat terrorist activity, child pornography, drug smuggling, human smuggling, bulk cash smuggling, human trafficking, export control violations, intellectual property rights violations and visa fraud, among other violations,' the CBP says on its website. 'Furthermore, border searches of electronic devices are often integral to determining an individual's intentions upon entry to the United States and thus provide additional information relevant to admissibility of foreign nationals under US immigration laws.' ALSO READ: How US Supreme Court's ruling that curbs judges' power benefits Trump STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Trump tightens immigration laws Foreign individuals and immigrants have been increasingly targeted under the Trump administration, which has cracked down on immigration and national security. In March, a French researcher was denied entry after customs agents found a 'personal opinion on the Trump administration's research policy' on his phone. Last week, an Australian writer said he was deported to Melbourne over his reporting on the Columbia University protests. The DHS announced in April that its agents would start screening the social media accounts of immigrants for so-called 'antisemitic activity'. Those seeking US student visas have also been told to change the privacy settings on their social media profiles to 'public.' The US State Department recently asked diplomats to review social media profiles for 'any indications of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States.' With inputs from agencies
NDTV
5 hours ago
- Politics
- NDTV
"Dangerous Extremist Propaganda": How A Bald JD Vance Meme Got Tourist Banned From US
A 21-year-old Norwegian tourist called Mads Mikkelsen was detained by the US Customs and Border Protection (USCBP) at Newark Airport for five hours. Mikkelson claims it was because of a doctored photo of US Vice President JD Vance. After he returned to Norway, Mikkelsen spoke to a local newspaper Nordlys and stated that the USCBP agents threatened to slap a $5,000 fine on him if he did not unlock his phone and let them scroll through the photos. In his photo gallery, the agents discovered a photoshopped picture of JD Vance with a bald, egg-shaped head on his phone. Mikkelsen told the BBC, "The agent seemed to be very antagonised by the image. He asked me why I had it saved on my phone." He went on to explain to the agent that it was just a meme, a piece of comedy. The agent responded by saying, "It's very clearly a piece of dangerous extremist propaganda". However, he also said that he told agents about legally consuming cannabis in Germany and New Mexico, in places where it was legal to do so, after they extensively questioned him about drug smuggling, terrorism and extremism. He was also taken to a guarded room and asked to surrender his shoes, phone and backpack. US law does state that an individual can be turned away for drug use even if they have not been convicted of a crime. Later, USCBP clarified in a post on X that Mikkelsen was denied entry because of his admitted drug use. "Fact Check: FALSE," they posted, "Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use." The Department of Homeland Security has also publicly denied that Mikkelsen was denied entry because of the meme. Mikkelsen said that the entire episode had been traumatic because of strip-searches, luggage ransacking, fingerprinting, blood sampling and falsified travel records. His Norwegian passport had also been mistakenly labelled as "Spanish". The paperwork he was given by US immigration officials, mentions another reason for his removal. Officials thought he may be attempting to seek unauthorised employment in the US. Mikkelsen said, "I would not return while the current government is in power." US Customs and Border Protection say that about one million individuals enter the United States every day, and of those people, only less than 0.01 per cent of travellers have their devices searched.
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Trump Admin Denies It Deported Tourist Over Bloated JD Vance Meme on His Phone
This week, a 21-year-old Norwegian tourist claimed to have been turned away from entry into the U.S. after border patrol found a meme of a bald, puffy JD Vance on his phone. The government has since disavowed the man's claims, but that hasn't stopped the internet from taking the opportunity to remember just how much they love that meme. The tourist in question, named Mads Mikkelsen (not to be confused with the Casino Royale actor of the same name), arrived at Newark airport on June 11th and planned to stay in the U.S. for a short vacation. However, he told reporters he was deported not long after CBP authorities found the meme on his phone. In an interview with a Norwegian news outlet, Mikkelsen claimed that he after the meme was discovered, authorities proceeded to grill him on a series of criminal activities that had nothing to do with him: 'They asked questions about drug trafficking, terrorist plots and right-wing extremism totally without reason,' Mikkelsen told the outlet. Not long afterward, he was sent packing. After rumors circulated that Mikkelsen had been ejected because of the meme, the government attempted to denounce the story. On Tuesday, the X account for the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol shared a screenshot of the meme, adding: 'Fact Check: FALSE.' The account added: 'Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use.' Ironically, the incident served as yet another opportunity for the internet to revel in just how much they love that meme. The meme briefly had a surge of reshares on social media, as the story made the rounds. Irish lawmaker Ivana Bacik held up a printout of the meme during a parliamentary session while denouncing the Trump administration's border policies. 'We're watching a major incursion on the freedom of expression, unthinkable in an electoral democracy,' Bacik said. Even U.S. Senator Ron Wyden shared the meme on Bluesky without comment. The bloated baby face J.D. Vance meme started last October and quickly spawned a million iterations. Creativity of the sort that isn't usually found outside of an experimental art class swept social media as web users delighted in the ability to make Vance as obese and grotesque as humanly possible. Under the Trump administration, CBP has been accused of turning away many tourists for similarly nebulous reasons. One man, an Australian journalist, claims he was interrogated and turned away for his reports on pro-Palestinian protests and Gaza. The Trump administration has also made it clear that it wants to intensively vet the social media histories of visitors to the U.S. As horrific as these invasions of privacy have become, at least we can rely on the Streisand effect to humiliate the vice president like clockwork.
