Politics
Amid President Trump’s crackdown on immigration, agents detained Lame, 25, for overstaying a visa, and he left the country. Another Gen Z influencer took credit.
By Emma Bubola, New York Times Service
2 minutes to read
President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown reached influencer level last week when Khaby Lame, the world’s most-followed person on TikTok, was detained by U.S. immigration agents in Las Vegas and then left the United States.
Lame, an Italian-Senegalese man who has over 160 million followers, was detained Friday at Harry Reid International Airport, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, said in a statement.
Another Generation Z influencer, Bo Loudon, a teenager and a pro-Trump activist, took credit for Lame’s removal.
“I discovered that he was an illegal,” Loudon, who has said he is best friends with Trump’s son Barron, and whose Instagram feed is filled with thumbs-up photos alongside the president and his entourage, wrote on social platform X. “And I personally took action to have him deported,” he added.
Lame, who has made his name by posting wordless, comic videos on TikTok, did not respond to a request for comment.
The detention came amid a spike in ICE enforcement since Trump took office, with the president’s crackdown also becoming powerful ammunition in fights between social media superstars.
Lame, 25, who was born in Senegal but has lived in Italy since he was 1, became famous by responding to viral and often absurdly complicated life-hack videos with easy-to-understand reaction clips in which he would do the same task in a much simpler manner.
As his following grew, he signed partnerships with fashion brands, made a cameo appearance in a Hollywood movie and starred in a TV show, “Khaby Is Coming To America,” on streaming service Tubi, depicting his travels across the United States.
In recent months, said his former lawyer, Riccardo Lanzo, Lame had spent a significant amount of time in the United States, although he was unsure about his visa situation.
According to a statement by ICE, Lame entered the United States on April 30 and overstayed the terms of his visa. He was granted voluntary departure Friday and has since left the country.
Loudon, who helped Trump reach young voters, said in an interview with Dylan Page, an online streamer, that Lame “had worked with a few of my friends,” who told him Lame was staying in the country illegally.
“I just called some buddies in the administration,” Loudon said. “And I’ve never seen anything happen so quick.”
Loudon also accused Lame of being a “far-left influencer” and of disliking Trump, though there is no obvious indication that Lame openly took political stances.
Loudon declined a New York Times request for an interview but referred the paper to the Page interview.
Lame, who has not publicly commented on the events, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview, but he continued to post content on social media, including an Instagram story from Sao Paulo on Monday.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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