TikTok star Khaby Lame leaves US after being detained by ICE

Kha­by Lame, the world’s most pop­u­lar Tik­Tok per­son­al­i­ty with mil­lions of fol­low­ers, has left the U.S. af­ter be­ing de­tained by im­mi­gra­tion agents in Las Ve­gas for al­leged­ly over­stay­ing his visa.

The Sene­galese-Ital­ian in­flu­encer, whose le­gal name is Seringe Kha­bane Lame, was de­tained Fri­day at Har­ry Reid In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port but was al­lowed to leave the coun­try with­out a de­por­ta­tion or­der, a spokesper­son for U.S. Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms En­force­ment con­firmed in a state­ment.

Lame ar­rived in the U.S. on April 30 and “over­stayed the terms of his visa,” the ICE spokesper­son said. The As­so­ci­at­ed Press sent a mes­sage seek­ing com­ment Tues­day to the email ad­dress list­ed on Lame’s In­sta­gram ac­count. He has not pub­licly com­ment­ed on his de­tain­ment.

His de­tain­ment and vol­un­tary de­par­ture from the U.S. comes amid Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s es­ca­lat­ing crack­down on im­mi­gra­tion, in­clud­ing raids in Los An­ge­les that sparked days of protests against ICE, as the pres­i­dent tests the bounds of his ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty.

A vol­un­tary de­par­ture — which was grant­ed to Lame — al­lows those fac­ing re­moval from the U.S. to avoid a de­por­ta­tion or­der on their im­mi­gra­tion record, which could pre­vent them from be­ing al­lowed back in­to the U.S. 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 would show him re­act­ing to ab­surd­ly com­pli­cat­ed “life hacks.” He has over 162 mil­lion fol­low­ers on Tik­Tok alone.

The Sene­gal-born in­flu­encer moved to Italy when he was an in­fant with his work­ing-class par­ents and has Ital­ian cit­i­zen­ship.

His in­ter­net fame quick­ly evolved. He signed a mul­ti-year part­ner­ship with de­sign­er brand Hugo Boss in 2022. In Jan­u­ary, he was ap­point­ed as a UNICEF good­will am­bas­sador.

Last month, he at­tend­ed the Met Gala in New York City, days af­ter ar­riv­ing in the U.S.

LAS VE­GAS (AP) —