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Derek Guy, the popular men’s tailoring influencer known for critiquing Donald Trump and JD Vance’s clothing, has revealed that he is an undocumented migrant to the United States – and could therefore be at risk of being deported.
In a lengthy post on X over the weekend, Guy, who has mercilessly ridiculed the length of the president’s trademark red ties and the cut of his deputy’s suits, explained the moving circumstances behind his family’s arrival in the U.S.
“My family escaped Vietnam after the Tet Offensive and went through an arduous journey that eventually landed them in the Canada,” he wrote.
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“My father worked there for a time as a janitor; my mother, a secretary. When work fell through, my dad was offered to work with his sister in the United States, so he went, as our family needed money.
“He ended up staying in the US longer than he was supposed to – not knowing immigration laws – and asked my mom to come be with him. Of course, she went and carried me over the border while I was still a baby.”
Guy concluded: “I’m still unsure whether we technically broke an immigration law. The border between Canada and the United States was pretty porous (as it is today, for the most part).
“But either way, since I came here without legal documentation, I eventually fell into the category of being an undocumented immigrant.”
Alarmingly, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) responded to another tweet about Guy’s admission by posting a meme from the children’s film Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams (2002) in which the character Juni Cortez’s high-tech glasses zoom in on a target, implying that they are looking into the situation.
The Independent has contacted the DHS for clarification on Guy’s situation.
Vance also replied with a meme taken from a movie from more than 20 years ago, in his case a GIF of Jack Nicholson grinning and nodding enthusiastically from the 2003 comedy Anger Management, which might equally be interpreted as a veiled threat.
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Guy, who is notoriously publicity shy and seldom photographed, made light of the tension on X, posting some of the media reaction to his revelation on Monday and commenting: “Honestly didn’t expect this is what would happen when I joined a menswear forum 15 years ago.”
On Tuesday, he joked: “Just walked by {Immigration and Customs Enforcement] ICE but I was wearing slim chinos and dress sneakers so they suspected nothing.”
Guy’s tweets have repeatedly mocked Trump and Vance’s sartorial choices, as well as other members of the administration like Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth and Robert F Kennedy Jr and MAGA acolytes like Charlie Kirk.
In late May, he derided the president and Kirk’s appearances in the Oval Office, noting that the latter’s “shrunken and soft” threads left him looking “like he was dunked into water while wearing the suit, put through a tumble dry, and then dunked again.”
Teasing Vance over his St Patrick’s Day socks in March, he observed that the veep’s “pants are too slim, hence why they ride up on him like this.”
Last year, he rubbished Miller’s obsequious claim that Trump is America’s most stylish president, listing John F Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush as four occupants of the White House who were more smartly turned out than the current president, in his opinion.
The controversy comes at a time when the Trump administration is drastically speeding up its crackdown on illegal immigration, sparking five days of protests in Los Angeles that have since spread to other major American cities.
