Picture this: you're a 21-year-old Norwegian named Mads Mikkelsen (no, not the actor who played Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the critically acclaimed NBC series Hannibal), all excited for a dream American adventure.
But the moment you land at Newark Liberty Airport, tired but pumped, you get strip searched, phone out and a one-way ticket back to Oslo.
Why? Well, it depends on who you ask.
The whole drama started when US border agents scrolled through Mads' phone and found a meme, according to a report by Norwegian newspaper Nordlys.
Not just any meme, it was a Photoshopped picture of US Vice President JD Vance looking like a bald, bug-eyed cartoon. A silly gag saved from a group chat, Mads says. But US authorities weren't laughing.
Soon, he claims, things escalated: stern questions about terrorism, drug smuggling and even political extremism. Then came the full treatment: bags searched, a strip search, fingerprints and even a blood test.
Officers allegedly told Mads he could face jail time or a $5,000 fine unless he unlocked his phone. He complied. Hours later, he was back on a plane to Norway.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) strongly denies that memes had anything to do with it. According to them, Mads himself admitted to past drug use, and that is what triggered the action.
Tricia McLaughlin, speaking for the Department of Homeland Security, called Mads' meme theory "false" and "BS". The official CBP account posted that his removal was "not for any memes or political reasons".
Still, Mads insists he never imagined a couple of pictures, including one of a handmade wooden pipe, would be the reason he'd be denied entry.
"Both photos were saved automatically from chat apps," he told Norwegian outlet Nordlys. "I really didn't think anything of them."
National security risk?
It's not the first time a visitor's phone has caused trouble at the US border.
Earlier this month, Australian writer Alistair Kitchen was sent back home from Los Angeles.
He says it was because of political posts and his reporting on pro-Palestinian protests. The Department of Homeland Security called his claims "unequivocally false", too.
There's a growing chorus of concern over whether customs agents are using their sweeping powers a bit too freely, and perhaps politically.
From French academics questioned over their views on Trump to travellers from Europe grilled about ideology, recent incidents suggest border crossings under the new Trump era feel more like interrogations than immigration.
Meanwhile, countries like Denmark, Finland, and China have issued travel warnings for the US, and international tourism dollars are drying up, with an estimated $12.5 billion loss expected this year alone, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council.
Under US law, border agents don't need a warrant to search your device at the airport.
In fact, there's a blurry line between manual and forensic phone searches, and CBP doesn't define what counts as "reasonable suspicion" very clearly.
ACLU lawyers advise travellers to pack a separate phone, print all essential documents, and maybe delete anything you wouldn't want scrutinised, like "delete your nudes" as warned by The Guardian in a recent headline.
Because once you land but haven't cleared immigration, your rights are murky at best.
"It's a legal no-man's-land," Nate Freed Wessler of the ACLU told The Guardian. "You can be detained for up to 90 days. And your device? Fair game."
