Mads Mikkelsen, a 21-year-old from Norway, was denied entry to the US earlier this month after immigration officers uncovered a well-liked meme that includes a chubby, bald Vice President JD Vance on his cellphone.
In an interview, Mikkelsen advised Hyperallergic that he arrived at Newark Liberty Worldwide Airport on June 11 from Norway for a two-month trip. Mikkelsen got here to the US for the primary time when he was 18 years previous and made associates there, and he was planning to journey to Austin from Newark to go to considered one of them. On the finish of his keep, he was going to fulfill his mom to discover US nationwide parks.
Whereas in line for passport management on the New Jersey airport, Mikkelsen mentioned he seen two people sporting civilian garments eyeing him. When he stepped as much as present his passport, the officer requested him if he had any meat in his suitcase. Mikkelsen had introduced a cured sausage as a housewarming reward and the passport officer requested him to forfeit it, which he mentioned wasn’t an issue. At that time, Mikkelsen mentioned, the plainclothes males, who later revealed themselves to be Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers, took him to an armored room, presumably to eliminate the sausage.
Mikkelsen mentioned the ICE brokers then requested him if he deliberate to commit acts of home terrorism, whether or not he was a part of any extremist teams, and if he deliberate to smuggle narcotics into the nation. After answering “no” to those questions, Mikkelsen mentioned the officers requested to do a regular examine of his cellphone.
When requested for his password, Mikkelsen hesitated, however the officers advised him he may face a $5,000 advantageous or 5 years in jail for not complying with US authorities.
“I’m thinking: ‘What the fuck?’ And, ‘Oh, shit.’” Mikkelsen recalled. “I comply and give him the password, even though I really didn’t want to, this was very much against my will.”
Mikkelsen mentioned he was taken to a different room, the place officers confirmed him a monitor displaying a photograph of a picket tobacco pipe supposedly taken from his cellphone. Mikkelsen acknowledged the item as a picket pipe he made round 5 years in the past in commerce faculty, and defined to officers that it was a tobacco pipe.
The brokers, in response to Mikkelsen, alleged that it was “narcotic paraphernalia.”
“I, then again, try to say that it is just a pipe, and it is very obviously not a stereotypical weed pipe, because it was just a wooden pipe,” Mikkelsen advised Hyperallergic. “It’s very obvious to me that I cannot argue with these people, and that they have decided preemptively that it was narcotic paraphernalia.”
The officer then requested him if he had ever tried medicine, and Mikkelsen mentioned he had consumed marijuana twice in his life in locations the place the drug was authorized. (Underneath US immigration legislation, drug abuse is grounds for entry denial, however drug abuse is outlined as “current substance-use disorders.”)
The second photograph the brokers offered to Mikkelsen was the viral meme of JD Vance in opposition to a blue background. Mikkelson mentioned he hadn’t downloaded the picture on his cellphone, but it surely had robotically saved from a message another person had despatched him on WhatsApp.
As Mikkelsen tried to elucidate this, he mentioned, an officer advised him the picture was “illegal” and “dangerous.” He remembers that the officers could have used the time period “propaganda” to explain the meme.
After being proven the photographs from his cellphone, Mikkelsen mentioned one of many officers strip searched him with “excessive force.”
“He pushed me against the wall and was squeezing me so hard it was physically painful,” Mikkelsen mentioned.
He was then launched to Customs and Border Safety (CBP) officers, who went by means of his baggage. At one level, Mikkelsen mentioned, an officer pulled out a flower-printed shirt that he claimed was additionally drug paraphernalia. The officers additionally mocked him for packing a choker necklace, Mikkelsen claims.
On the finish of the hours-long affair, Mikkelsen mentioned, the officers advised him that he was being denied entry to the US over a “combination of the narcotic paraphernalia as well as the extremist propaganda, being the JD Vance meme,” in Mikkelsen’s phrases.
When Mikkelsen’s story broke earlier this week in Norway, the Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) publicly rejected the declare that the vacationer was deported over a JD Vance meme, and mentioned Mikkelsen was denied entry as a result of he admitted to utilizing medicine.
DHS, which oversees ICE and CBP, didn’t reply to Hyperallergic’s request for remark. Neither department has responded to inquiries.
Nevertheless, paperwork offered to Mikkelsen by Customs and Border Safety, reviewed by Hyperallergic, say that he appeared to not be a vacationer however as an alternative deliberate to immigrate to and work within the US, and that this was the rationale for his entry denial.
A doc Mikkelsen mentioned he was handed on the finish of the interrogation explaining why authorities denied him entry into the US.
“I also find that claim to be absolutely ridiculous, because I live in Norway,” Mikkelsen mentioned. “I would be giving up all of my freedom and my superior wage and a much safer and much healthier place to live.”
Now again at house in Norway, Mikkelsen mentioned he doesn’t plan to pursue authorized motion in opposition to the US as a result of he lacks religion within the judicial system. He has a concept, now, about why he could have been focused: As a lone traveler, Mikkelsen believes officers assumed he wouldn’t have anybody to again him up and that denying him may very well be an excellent search for their very own statistics.
“My reason for going to the media with this case was not to get revenge — it was to highlight the extremely poor treatment that I received,” Mikkelsen advised Hyperallergic. He worries about what his expertise bodes for different vacationers.
“I am a White, European, cisgender male, which means that I, by most circumstances, received probably the best possible treatment I could receive,” he mentioned.
