EXCLUSIVE: Norwegian tourist says he was barred from entering the U.S. over a JD Vance meme, interrogated for hours, then had his records falsified

A Norwegian planning to visit friends in the U.S. says he was detained and barred from entering the United States at New Jersey's Newark airport over a JD Vance meme on his phone.

Earlier this month, Mads Mikkelsen (no relation to the actor) spent five hours in a cell after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents found the meme and a photo of a wooden pipe on his phone. They ultimately denied his entry, sending him back to Norway.

He later discovered what appeared to be falsified sections of the customs documents they sent him home with. The 21-year-old's harrowing experience echoes similar stories from tourists and other visitors to the U.S., as well as numerous reports from undocumented immigrants and additional ICE targets.

On June 11, 2025, Mikkelsen arrived at the airport in New Jersey, intending to visit friends for a two-month vacation. Instead, he got a nightmare.

Norwegian tourist Mads Mikkelsen barred from U.S. entry over a JD Vance meme

https://twitter.com/walrusinasuit/status/1937421448634589472

Speaking with the Daily Dot, Mikkelsen says that a customs agent first questioned him about a sausage in his luggage. A plainclothes ICE agent approached and promised to "fix the issue quickly" before bringing him to an interrogation room. They questioned him for an hour, then allegedly threatened him with legal consequences if he didn't let them search his phone.

"They threatened me with a minimum $5,000 fine (about 50,000 Norwegian kroner) or five years in prison if I refused to give up my phone password," he told Norwegian outlet Nordlys.

According to legal experts and CBP's website, while they are allowed to search electronic devices, the most they can do to a foreign national for refusing to unlock their phone is confiscate it and deny that person entry.

Unfortunately for Mikkelsen, in his camera roll, they found one babyface JD Vance meme and a photo of a wooden pipe. ICE agents grilled him over the political intent of the meme and called the tobacco pipe—made for a friend in trade school five years ago—"narcotics paraphernalia."

Following that, he says U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers ransacked his luggage, patted him down, fingerprinted him, scanned his face, and even took blood samples. Then, they interrogated him some more.

The experience, he told us, was traumatic enough to make him physically ill.

"The event as a whole was what I can only describe as extremely violating and traumatic," he said. "I felt sick for multiple days after I got home. Felt weak like if I'd had food poisoning, just without the puking."

He says records misstate his passport and the purpose of his visit

After Mikkelsen was turned away, forcing him to return to Norway and cancel his plans, he noticed some starkly incorrect information on the customs forms that documented what CBP had asked him and his answers.

Firstly, the forms claim that he was entering the U.S. to visit family when he'd told them he was there for friends.

Second, the document claims that the agent called Mikkelsen's passport "Spanish."

"Q. I present to you this Spanish passport, which bears the number [redacted] and was issued on December 29, 2021, in Norway. Does this passport belong to you?" the document reads.

"Yes," Mikkelsen supposedly answered.

Why customs would call a passport from Norway "Spanish" is unclear. ICE and the Trump administration, however, have made no effort to obscure the fact that they're primarily targeting migrants from Spanish-speaking nations.

Mikkelsen confirmed to the Daily Dot that he obtained his passport in Norway and has never been to Spain.

This is not the first time that someone has accused CBP of falsifying records. In November 2019, the San Diego Union-Tribune said it found 14 occasions in which CBP agents wrote non-existent court dates on documents given to migrants seeking asylum in order to send them to Mexico as part of Trump's "remain in Mexico" policy.

"This is fraud," said immigrant lawyer Bashir Ghazialam. "I don’t call everything fraud. This is the first time I’ve used the words, 'U.S. government,' and, 'fraud,' in the same sentence. No one should be OK with this."

ICE detaining and deporting foreign visitors

Mikkelen is far from the first visitor to the U.S. to end up with an ICE-related horror story. One of the first was British tourist Becky Burke, who ICE detained at the Canadian border in Washington State on Feb. 26, 2025. An issue with her visa sent her back into the U.S., then to a migrant detention center in Tacoma.

ICE accused her of attempting to gain employment illegally because she thought she might do some work for some of her hosts to pay them back for their generosity. She spent weeks behind bars before they returned her to the U.K. on March 18.

Referring to how ICE removed her in chains, Burke's father remarked to the BBC that his daughter is "not Hannibal Lecter."

Many more stories have followed, including those of U.S. citizens like popular Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. Mikkelsen's experience led him to follow in the footsteps of many by recommending that nobody visit the U.S. who doesn't have to.

"I would highly advise anyone who is thinking of traveling to the US to really look at their plans and judge if it is crucial," said Mikkelsen. "They don't need a reason to treat people poorly, and they will lie and say whatever is needed for things to go their way."

He added that those he knows in the U.S. who have heard his story expressed "shame, anger, and disappointment in the current government and how they treat both their own and foreign visitors."

The Daily Dot has reached out to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol for comment via email.

---

The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here to get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Norwegian tourist says he was barred from entering the U.S. over a JD Vance meme, interrogated for hours, then had his records falsified appeared first on The Daily Dot.