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submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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 1 month ago

Our leaders are NOT Snowflakes or Emotional!

[-] [email protected] 73 points 1 month ago
[-] [email protected] 184 points 1 month ago

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] 74 points 1 month ago

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

[-] [email protected] 95 points 1 month ago

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] 75 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 1 month ago

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 1 month 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 1 month ago

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 1 month ago

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] 21 points 1 month ago

You don't think they would do that?

Just go on the internet and tell lies?

[-] [email protected] 108 points 1 month ago

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 1 month ago

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 1 month 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 1 month ago

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 1 month ago

The United States is such a shithole country lol

No one should travel there.

[-] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

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 1 month ago

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

[-] [email protected] 57 points 1 month ago
[-] [email protected] 31 points 1 month 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 1 month ago

Please be satire, please be satire...

reads

...Oh, fuck.

[-] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago

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

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[-] [email protected] 41 points 1 month ago
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[-] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago

But, but Elon told me comedy was legal now!

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[-] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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 1 month ago

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 1 month ago

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

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[-] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Mads Mikkelsen

[-] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago

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

[-] [email protected] 42 points 1 month ago

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.

[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's not the norm but it does happen quite a bit, especially in authoritarian countries at land borders where the officials are always looking for a way to justify their jobs. It happened to me last year and that was in China, although in that case leaving not entering.

PS: for info, that was in Xinjiang at possibly the highest security border in the world. I showed the official a bunch of my mundane tourist photos, which was enough to have me on my way. Not a pleasant experience though.

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[-] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago

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

[-] [email protected] 71 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

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

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[-] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago

JD Vance meme

No, that’s just how he looks.

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[-] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago
[-] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 1 month ago

Lets teach that uneducated moron Vance the Streisand effect.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

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 1 month ago

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 1 month ago

Up next pictures of couches

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[-] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago

Magas hate freedom

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this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
971 points (98.0% liked)

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