US Immigration Agents Detain TikTok Star Khabih Leym
Khabi Lame, who became famous for his funny TikTok videos, was detained by immigration authorities last week, writes NPRThis was reported by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE).
Photo: GIOLE | Dreamstime.com
Senegalese by origin, 25-year-old Layme has lived in Italy since he was one year old. During the pandemic, the young man lost his job at a factory and began recording short funny videos for TikToK. They quickly became popular, and now Layne holds the first place in the world in terms of the number of subscribers - he has 162,2 million.
Last month, Lame attended the Met Gala in New York while in the United States. He overstayed his visa, officials said. However, after initially being detained in Nevada, he was allowed to leave the country.
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"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained Seringe Habane Leyma, 6, an Italian national, at Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, on June 25 for immigration violations," an ICE spokesperson told NPR.
Requests for comment to Lame and his managers went unanswered. His TikTok and Instagram accounts make no mention of the arrest.
ICE says Lame legally entered the United States on April 30 but overstayed his visa.
When NPR asked for more details about the visa, including its expiration date, the response was: "All we have is the information provided in the application."
“On June 6, Lame was granted voluntary departure and departed the United States,” an ICE spokesperson said.
Such departures are at the discretion of the authorities and, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement regulations, do not result in "a decision to deport and related immigration consequences."
Leyme was born in Senegal and raised in Italy, where he received citizenship in the summer of 2022.
At that time, Leim was already called the “king of TikTok” - having exceeded the 140 million subscriber mark, his account became the most popular.
However, he told the Italian media at the time that he could not obtain citizenship in the country where he had lived since he was one year old. Shortly after, a government official announced that Leyme would receive Italian citizenship.
As the TikToker told La Repubblica, his rise to fame began in the first months of quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lame began posting videos on TikTok and quickly became a sensation. He was compared to Mr. Bean, the comedy character played by Rowan Atkinson.
Last fall, Lame even created a sketch in which he edited footage of Mr. Bean at the airport with video of himself posing as a security guard.
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Speaking about Lame's widespread popularity, Payal Arora, a digital anthropologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, said that in addition to his comedy talent, Lame is also successful at "putting influencers in their place."
He explained that when he makes videos mocking the absurdity of bloggers' advice, it's as if he's telling ordinary people: "Hey, wait! They're the idiots, and you're doing everything right."
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