It’s been a claim bandied about social media over the past few days and amplified by left-wing outlets — the latest scare regarding President Donald Trump’s administration and immigration.
But is it true? The Department of Homeland Security says not quite.
First, the allegations. According to multiple outlets, 21-year-old Mads Mikkelsen (no relation to the actor) from Norway had flown to Newark Liberty International Airport just outside of New York City on June 11.
His hometown newspaper Nordlys headlined it thusly: “Two pictures spoiled Mads’ dream vacation.” The U.K.’s Daily Mail was a bit more, well, Daily Mail-ish: “Norwegian tourist, 21, is barred from entering the US after ICE guards find meme showing JD Vance with a bald head on his phone.” (It’s important to note, the Mail’s title has since been updated.)
Mikkelsen said he was questioned “about drug trafficking, terrorist plots, and right-wing extremism” by immigration agents at Newark, all of which he said was “totally without reason.”
He added, it was an “abuse of power and harassment,” according to The Daily Beast’s report.
“They took me to a room with several armed guards, where I had to hand over my shoes, mobile phone, and backpack,” he said of his holding room experience.
Then, he said, things got quite bad indeed. Per the Daily Beast:
Next, Mikkelsen claims that officials threatened to imprison him or fine him $5,000 if he did not grant them access to his phone, so he did. He said that is when agents found a meme on his device that showed the vice president’s face — digitally altered to make him chubbier, bald, and cartoonish — that became popular after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the Oval Office in February. He claimed they also signaled disapproval to a photo of him with a homemade wooden pipe.
“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,” he said.
“It felt like I was a terrorist suspect where I was sitting,” he added. “I tried to pull myself together several times, but in the end, I just wanted to get home again.”
He said he had to give blood samples and fingerprints, adding they had asked what he considered intrusive questions about his plans in the United States.
“They demanded full information about everyone I was going to meet in the U.S., including name, address, phone number, and what they did for work,” he explained.
The Daily Beast did report that “Mikkelsen did not say if he provoked immigration officials in some way. However, he did note that he was exhausted having just deplaned a long flight across the Atlantic Ocean.”
“I had traveled for 12 hours, slept poorly, and was physically and mentally completely exhausted even before they started the questioning,” Mikkelsen said.
Per @bladetnordlys, a Norwegian newspaper, 21-year-old tourist Mads Mikkelsen* was arrested, threatened with a $5000 fine if he didn’t unlock his phone and refused entry to the US because of a JD Vance meme on his device
*no, not THAT Mads Mikkelsenhttps://t.co/Wxdr4b5KNa pic.twitter.com/v8U2eLEkA0
— Evan O’Connell (@evanoconnell) June 24, 2025
As Time noted, this elicited some reaction from anti-Trump figures on the left who accused Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as the Department of Homeland Security, of impinging on Mikkelsen’s free speech.
On social media, anti-Trump influencers including former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger and #Resistance movement activist Brian Krassenstein, among others, shared reports of the denial of entry and encouraged the spreading of more Vance memes, which became popular after President Donald Trump’s explosive meeting with Volodomyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February, when Vance demanded the Ukrainian President say “thank you” to Trump.
“These are the same people who blame Europe for a lack of free speech,” disinformation researcher Pekka Kallioniemi posted on X about the Trump administration in relation to the story.
And while the Daily Beast and Time’s reports, from Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, didn’t definitively say the meme was what got him detained and sent back to Norway, the implication was certainly there. In both reports, however, there was the kernel of the real reason the DHS says he was sent back:
From Customs and Border Protection’s X account: “Fact Check: FALSE 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. pic.twitter.com/is9eGqILUq
— CBP (@CBP) June 24, 2025
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin went further by saying he’d admitted to using drugs:
BS. Claims that Mads Mikkelsen was denied entry because of a JD Vance meme are FALSE.
Mikkelsen was refused entry into the U.S. for his admitted drug use. pic.twitter.com/AbXczQ8tg5
— Tricia McLaughlin (@TriciaOhio) June 24, 2025
While the CBP isn’t specific about the reasons why aside from drugs, we can safely assume that it had something to do with both the picture of the pipe that was on his phone and the tests that were conducted, as well as his manner — which he seems to admit came across as potentially disoriented.
The CBP clarified to the Daily Mail, “Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons.”
Even given all of this, all of the outlets tried to pull other individual claims of turned-away entry and lump everything under the aegis of the Trump administration cracking down on random people at border entry points:
From the Daily Mail:
Alistair Kitchen, 33, boarded a flight from Melbourne to New York to visit friends on June 12 when he was pulled to one side by a Customs and Border Protection officer during a layover in Los Angeles.
He was detained for 12 hours at Los Angeles International Airport before being put on a flight back to Melbourne.
Mr Kitchen said he was refused entry to the U.S. because of his political beliefs, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has since said this is “unequivocally false.”
And the Daily Beast:
An American citizen and her German fiancé were detained near San Diego in February when they tried to re-enter the United States after visiting Mexico. The German national was 22 days into a permitted 90‑day visa stay, but was forced to spend 16 days in a federal detention center before being deported.
A Welsh backpacker was also held for nearly three weeks at a U.S.–Canada land crossing this spring, and another German was detained for a month and a half, including eight days in solitary confinement, under suspicion of intent to work. None of the tourists involved in those incidents were charged with a crime.
Kitchen had reportedly given false information regarding his drug use on his entry application, and the others involved were suspected of attempting to breach the terms of their tourist visas by seeking work or “deemed inadmissible” due to violations of “statutes or visa terms,” although they couldn’t discuss specifics.
Point is, this is the kind of stuff that will land you in trouble with the immigration authorities in any jurisdiction, which makes those stories less interesting for reporters. That makes Mr. Mikkelsen’s story a better one, inasmuch as there’s a certain dark humor in the allegation that you weren’t let into the U.S.A. due to J.D. Vance memes on your phone.
That doesn’t make the story any more true, however. Without looking at the specifics — which cannot be given by DHS — the evidence doesn’t add up in his favor.
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