Norwegian tourist claims he was turfed out of US over mean JD Vance meme

A Norwegian tourist is claiming he was turfed out of the US by Customs and Border Protection agents at Newark airport in New Jersey, after a mean JD Vance meme was found on his phone. Via the Daily Mail:

Mads Mikkelsen, 21, was sent away after arriving at New Jersey‘s Newark Airport on June 11 for a holiday.

He told Norwegian outlet Nordlys that he had been pulled aside by border control and put in a cell.

‘They asked questions about drug trafficking, terrorist plots and right-wing extremism totally without reason,’ he alleged in an interview with the outlet.

Mr Mikkelsen claimed that the officers then threatened him with a $5,000 fine or five years in prison if he refused to give the password to his mobile phone.

The guards were said to have found a meme on the device’s camera roll showing an edit of US vice president JD Vance with a bald, egg-shaped head. Mikkelsen said after discovering the image the authorities sent him home to Norway the same day.

The Department of Homeland Security says “no way,” and that Mikkelsen was sent away for a different reason.

The rumor in DC is that Mikkelsen was stopped in relation to drugs he may have been carrying.

This is the meme that Mikkelsen alleges was at issue:

Since President Trump’s second inauguration, a number of stories have popped about individuals being turned away at immigration checkpoints over anti-Trump content on their phones.

In virtually all cases, alternative explanations for those individuals being turned away have been offered by DHS.

If this does turn out to be in whole or in part to do with the anti-Vance meme, Customs and Border Patrol should probably buckle up. He’ll be Vice President for the next few years (or maybe even President, if Trump dies of old age) and could well win the presidency in 2028 as well.

And we know from Vance fans themselves that ball-busting is actively encouraged by the VP and therefore unlikely to stop anytime soon.

On which note, we give you this.