TikTok star Khaby Lame detained in US as pro-Trump influencer boasts of reporting him
Khaby Lame, the world's most popular TikTok personality, has left the US after being detained by immigration agents in Las Vegas.
The Senegalese-Italian influencer, whose legal name is Serigne Khabane Lame, was detained on Friday at Harry Reid International Airport but was allowed to leave the country without a deportation order, a spokesperson for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed in a statement.
He has not publicly discussed his detainment and did not immediately reply to a request for comment from the Associated Press.
News of the influencer's detainment comes amid President Donald Trump's escalating crackdown on immigration, which has included raids in Los Angeles that sparked days of protests against ICE in the city's downtown area.
Demonstrations have since spread to more cities across the US, with protesters marching in New York, Atlanta and Chicago on Tuesday night.
Bo Loudon, a self-described "pro-Trump influencer", claims he was the one to flag Lame's visa status with officials.
"I discovered he was an illegal who overstayed an invalid VISA, evaded taxes, and I personally took action to have him deported," the 18-year-old wrote on X.
Loudon repeated the claims across several social media posts, claiming to have learned of Lame's visa status through friends and business partners who had worked with the Senegalese-Italian, but did not publish any evidence for his claims.
Italian travellers are allowed to stay in the US for business or tourism purposes for up to 90 days without a visa under the Department of Homeland Security's Visa Waiver Program.
According to an ICE spokesperson, Lame arrived in the US on April 30 and "overstayed the terms of his visa".
A voluntary departure, which was granted to Lame, allows those facing removal from the US to avoid a deportation order on their immigration record, which could prevent them from re-entering the US for up to a decade.
The 25-year-old rose to international fame during the pandemic without ever saying a word in his videos, which showed him reacting to absurdly complicated "life hacks".
Lame has over 162 million followers on TikTok alone.
In 2022, he signed a multi-year partnership with designer brand Hugo Boss, and last month attended the Met Gala in New York City, days after arriving in the US.
He was born in Senegal, but moved to Italy as a baby with his working-class parents and now has Italian citizenship.
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