Khaby Lame, the world’s most-followed TikTok star and UNICEF Ambassador, left the United States after being detained by immigration agents in Las Vegas.
Lame, who shot to global fame during the pandemic with his characteristically gesture language, has not publicly commented on his departure from the United States.
The 25-year-old Senegal-born social media influencer has .massive following with 162 million followers on TikTok and 2.5 billion likes on his posts. His following has been hailed as being entirely organic
His meteoric rise has stunned the social media world, with people yearning for originality in creation and expression.
Lame says he believes in his dreams and is grateful for the success he has achieved.
“I just want to say, Alhamdulillah. God has given me everything—most importantly, the strength to keep going and to believe in my dreams. I’ve faced many struggles in life, and when everything seemed impossible, my faith kept me standing. Thank you, Allah, for being my only hope,” Lame wrote after performing a pilgrimage to Makkah.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Lame was detained at Harry Reid International Airport for allegedly overstaying his visa, and was allowed to leave the country without a deportation order.
he said in a popular TikTok videoLame is a Senegalese-Italian influencer, who landed in the U.S. on April 30. In May, he o the Met Gala in New York City.
His voluntary departure from the U.S. comes in the midst of enforcement of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy that targets immigrants staying illegally in the country.
In recent days immigration raids and street protests in Los Angeles have heightened tensions between California’s Democrats and the Republican president and sparked a debate over use of executive authority.
The visitors who are allowed to leave the United States voluntarily are not subjected to deportation, and they maintain an unblemished immigration record. On the other hand, deportation of individuals can translate into denial of their entry into the United States for up to a decade.
Of his popular appeal and poses with little or no words, Lame says he speaks “a global language.”
“It’s my face and my expressions which make people laugh,” Lame told The New York Times in 2021. The newspaper reported that Lame’s success is owed to his “universal exasperated everyman quality.”
