STREISAND EFFECT

CBP Reposts Vance Meme After Tourist Claims He Was Deported for It

A digitally altered image of Vance appearing chubbier and bald has haunted the vice president for months.

U.S. officials reposted a meme depicting Vice President JD Vance as bald and bloated in an attempt to refute a tourist’s claim that he was denied entry over the image.

Norwegian tourist Mads Mikkelsen, 21, was denied entry at Newark Airport, New Jersey, on June 11. He told his hometown newspaper Nordlys that immigration officials placed him on a flight back to Norway after discovering the popular meme saved on his phone.

Customs and Border Protection rushed to deny at least parts of the story as it gained steam online—but by doing so, made sure the meme was seen by many more people.

“Fact Check: FALSE,” CBP’s X account declared, alongside a screenshot of an article prominently featuring the meme—a digitally altered photo of Vance appearing chubby, bald, and perplexed. “Mads Mikkelsen was not denied entry for any memes or political reasons, it was for his admitted drug use.”

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deputy secretary Tricia McLaughlin joined in spreading the meme by reposting the article.

“BS. Claims that Mads Mikkelsen was denied entry because of a JD Vance meme are FALSE,” she wrote, before repeating that Mikkelsen was denied entry because of allegedly admitting to using drugs.

Mikkelsen told Nordlys that was quizzed about his use of drugs during the incident, and said that agents appeared to take issue with a photo of him with a homemade wooden pipe, but it remains unclear if that was the specific reason he was ultimately denied entry.

The Daily Beast has reached out to DHS for comment.

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Hailing from Tromsø, a Norwegian city north of the Arctic Circle, Mikkelsen was traveling to the U.S. to visit friends in New York City and Austin, Texas. He also planned to visit several national parks with his mom, who was scheduled to arrive at a later date.

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He claimed that after arriving at Newark, agents stopped him for questioning about “drug trafficking, terrorist plots, and right-wing extremism,” and then placed him in a holding cell.

Next, Mikkelsen claimed that agents threatened him with five years in prison or a $5,000 fine if he refused to give up the password to his phone. When he did, they found the meme.

Memes showing Vance’s distorted face became popular following the contentious Oval Office meeting between Vance, President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Vance reportedly told Julio Rosas of the rightwing outlet Blaze Media in March that he has seen many of the memes and thinks it’s a funny trend. That was before he became the subject of a flood of memes suggesting that he “killed” Pope Francis, whom he had met the day before his death.

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Making the meme even more popular online than it was as a result of trying to suppress it is an example of the Barba Streisand effect, named for the singer suing to stop people seeing a publicly available picture of her clifftop California home.

When she sued, there had been only six downloads of the picture, two by her own attorneys. After her lawsuit—which failed—was revealed, hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the picture she had not wanted anyone to see.

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Erkki ForsterNight News Reporter

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