Overview

Norwegian Tourist Denied Entry to U.S. For J.D. Vance Meme Claim refers to a June 2025 news story about 21-year-old Norwegian tourist Mads Mikkelsen claiming that he was denied entry into the U.S. at Newark Airport in New Jersey after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials stopped him for questioning and found a bald image of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, known as the Bald J.D. Vance meme, saved in his phone. While Mikkelsen alleges the meme led to him being barred from entry to the country, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it was false and that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) denied him for "his admitted drug use," not political reasons. Mikkelsen's claims were originally reported on by the Norwegian news outlet Nordlys. The story spread to British and American news outlets and social media sites like Twitter / X soon after, where netizens reacted to Mikkelsen's claim. A few days later, Ivana Bacik, an Irish politician and the leader of the Labour Party, held up a print-out of the Bald J.D. Vance meme in Irish parliament when discussing Mikkelsen's claims and U.S. visas.

Background

On June 23rd, 2025, Norwegian news outlet Nordlys^[1] published an article about 21-year-old Norwegian Mads Mikkelsen, who claimed that he was denied entry into the U.S. at Newark Airport in New Jersey. Immigration officials allegedly stopped him for questioning and quizzed him "about drug trafficking, terrorist plots and right-wing extremism," according to Mikkelsen, per Nordlys and the Daily Beast.^[2]

According to the outlets, Mikkelsen claimed that the officials placed him in a holding cell and requested to search the contents of his smartphone. Mikkelsen stated that the officials discovered a photo of a homemade wooden pipe and a photoshopped image of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance in his phone (known as the Bald J.D. Vance meme, shown below), which was a J.D. Vance Babyface Edit and part of the J.D. Vance Face Photoshop trend.^[1][2]

The Daily Beast,^[2] as well as the Daily Mail,^[3] translated some of Mikkelsen's quotes from Nordlys,^[1] such as, "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."

According to the outlets, Mikkelsen claimed that they searched him, requested blood samples and documented his fingerprints, ultimately barring him from entering the U.S. after the full interaction.^[2]

Nordlys^[1] published photos of Mads Mikkelsen as part of the article. One of them showed Mikkelsen holding up the bald J.D. Vance meme on a phone (shown below).

DHS and CBP Responses

On June 24th, 2025, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), made a post to her X^[10] / Twitter account (@TriciaOhio) including an image of the Daily Mail article and stated that the claims about Mads Mikkelsen being denied entry because of the J.D. Vance meme were false, writing, "Mikkelsen was refused entry into the U.S. for his admitted drug use." Her tweet received over 558,000 views, 3,100 likes and 280 replies in 18 hours (seen below).

Shortly after, the official Customs and Border Protection (CBP) X^[11] account (@CBP) then tweeted its response to the story, stating it was false and that "Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use." The tweet received over 1.8 million views, 37,000 likes and 1,100 replies in a similar timeframe.

On June 25th, 2025, Time^[12] then reported on the story, including both the claim from Mikkelsen and the responses from McLaughlin and CBP, noting that "reports of increased scrutiny, detentions, and denials of tourists have proliferated in recent months."

Online Reactions

The story went viral on social media soon after, such as in a tweet shared by X^[4] user @steinkobbe on June 23rd, 2025, who called the U.S. a "deeply unserious country." The post gained over 60,000 likes in two days (shown below).

On June 24th, the X^[5] account @NewsWire_US spread the story in a viral tweet, which received over 59,000 likes in a day.

Also on June 24th, 2025, Redditor pandorasblog shared the Nordlys^[1] article to the /r/Fauxmoi^[6] subreddit, gaining over 25,000 upvotes and 1,100 comments in a day.

That same day, YouTuber Philip DeFranco shared a TikTok^[7] video discussing the story, gaining over 127,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Later on June 24th, 2025, X^[8] user @spliffinjimmy posted a quote-tweet that compared Mads Mikkelsen's claims to the rumor that Winnie the Pooh was banned in China because of the character being compared to Chinese President Xi Jinping. They wrote, "Remember when people used to lie and say Winnie the Pooh was illegal in China and now something even stupider is actually happening in the US," gaining over 69,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Also that day, internet celebrity Allison Harvard posted a tweet^[9] with her famous Creepychan photo edited to look like J.D. Vance, captioned, "Could I be detained for this?" The tweet received over 98,000 likes in a day (shown below).

Appearance In Irish Parliament

On June 25th, 2025, Ivana Bacik, an Irish politician and the leader of the Labour Party, held up a print-out of the Bald J.D. Vance meme in Irish parliament when discussing Mikkelsen's claims and U.S. visas.^[13] A video of the event was posted to YouTube^[14] by the Irish Independent on June 26th (shown below).

The clip went viral on other social media platforms as well. For instance, on June 25th, X^[15] user @PopulismUpdates tweeted an image of Bacik holding up the meme, captioned, "Here's a real photo from Ireland's parliament," gaining over 141,000 likes in five days (shown below).

Various Reactions

Search Interest

External References