this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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A 21-year-old tourist has described the horrendous treatment he allegedly received after being denied entry to the USA due to a meme depicting JD Vance as bald being found on his phone

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[–] [email protected] 252 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Our leaders are NOT Snowflakes or Emotional!

[–] [email protected] 73 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 183 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

This not only has been going on awhile, it's worse than it sounds.

A French scientist was denied entry at the border earlier this year, in March, after officers unearthed messages criticising Trump on his phone.

Mikkelsen explained: "They threatened me with a minimum fine of $5,000 or five years in prison if I refused to provide the password to my phone."

[–] [email protected] 73 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Any idea if these threats are actionable? He's not a US citizen to just fine or imprison.

[–] [email protected] 94 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

They have "deported" dozens of US citizens at this point. Usually, being a non-citizen makes you more vulnerable to arbitrary bullshit at the border, whereas if you're a citizen you can stand up much more so for your rights if they're trying to push you into something illegal, but as of this year it's starting to matter less and less.

Everything is actionable once the rule of law collapses. At this point, if you're crossing the border, you're in danger of whatever they want to do to you.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

i think this is a concept that a lot of people are having a hard time grasping: laws are meaningless if no one enforces them. this 100% applies both to laws meant to protect you, AND laws meant to punish those who are harming you

On the other hand his actions are not regulated by law or by any clearly formulated code of behaviour. In Oceania there is no law. Thoughts and actions which, when detected, mean certain death are not formally forbidden, and the endless purges, arrests, tortures, imprisonments, and vaporizations are not inflicted as punishment for crimes which have actually been committed, but are merely the wiping-out of persons who might perhaps commit a crime at some time in the future.

-1984

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

they are not legal, as the first amendment applies even to noncitizens. however that doesn’t mean they can’t deny entry for “any” reason. they are fascist after all.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 weeks ago

Basically like firing you from work for discrimination isn't legal, but firing you for performance is (your performance being anything they wish to come up with).

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Depressingly, SCOTUS has ruled that you really don't have the same rights at border crossings as you do once you've passed through.

This applies to citizens as well as foreign nationals.

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[–] [email protected] 111 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

This can't be true because conservatives always cry about free speech.

If this is true then that means conservatives are massive hypocritical assholes.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago

You don't think they would do that?

Just go on the internet and tell lies?

[–] [email protected] 108 points 3 weeks ago (10 children)

imagine going on holiday in a country where they check your phone for memes

seeing the grand canyon seems cool but it can wait until that lunatic and his friends are gone

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 weeks ago (7 children)

Keep in mind that TSA searching peoples' phones was already policy under the last few administrations. Which is part of why I wasnt interested in traveling there even before the lunatic.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago

I've been avoiding travel to the US since the Patriot Act that followed 9/11 started that kind of shit and more in general the US started moving away from Democracy and into Autocracy.

Last time I felt like traveling to the North American continent I just went to Canada instead for a whole month - sea kayaking in British Columbia, hiking in the Canadian Rockies, sightseeing in Quebec . Highly recommended by the way.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Absolutely!

I have family in the US. Uncles and aunts and cousins. One of my cousins have a child who I've never met. I would love to meet them all.

But there is no way I'm going to the states in the current condition. And even if the administration would be replaced, I think it would take years for the states to recover to the point where I would visit.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The United States is such a shithole country lol

No one should travel there.

[–] HugeNerd 17 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

Um excuse me, who else can defend peace and freedom and democracy? They make all the best weapons!

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago

All my plans involving the US have been canceled for the foreseeable future. Fuck that place and Russia too.

[–] RandAlThor 57 points 3 weeks ago (36 children)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 weeks ago

I have never had my phone searched for memes (or at all, for that matter) when entering China.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Please be satire, please be satire...

reads

...Oh, fuck.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Sorry for the mediocre source, but it looks like it got its facts and translation right.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

But, but Elon told me comedy was legal now!

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Same thing i asked the other guy who posted this.

Do you have a source that isn’t a tabloid? The only other sources i found were other tabloids.

I’m sure horrible shit is happening but tabloids aren't news. They are meant to get an emotional reaction via mistruths and exaggeration. And you having a one day old account makes this even more suspect.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Mads Mikkelsen

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

See - this is the thing with people going on about how its so oppressive in countries outside of "The West" where they will arrest people for insulting their king on Facebook or some shit.

We are no better. I'm not American but Britain does the same kind of shit. Read some declassified police case files, the cops pick on weird shit on people's phones.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

I've been in Britain before, they didn't check my phone

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

If you are doing any international travel, leave your personal phone at home and bring a burner.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I have traveled the world, I just returned from China. Nobody has ever asked for my phone. This is crazy and it's definitely not the norm and is not happening even in very strict regime countries. This is the new USA.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Just get a burner to travel. Quit bringing your phones here.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

Better yet, don't go at all. Go to a country that's still a democracy.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

JD Vance meme

No, that’s just how he looks.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

He claims he was then strip-searched, forced to give blood samples, a facial scan and fingerprints.

Imagine having your biometrics taken and your blood forcibly siphoned by state-backed goons with guns for a meme.

Heads need to roll.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 weeks ago

Lets teach that uneducated moron Vance the Streisand effect.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Welcome to the new authoritarian America. Brought to you by craven politicians and a huge group of dipshits who consistently vote against their best interests because they only consume information straight from the sewer pipe that is fox news. Free speech is under threat more with each passing day, and once the Palantir database is complete, they are really going to go all out with their oppression.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

We're just another one of those feckless authoritarian countries with weird-ass laws about not mocking or criticizing the government now. It's pathetic.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Up next pictures of couches

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