The Trump administration is implementing visa restrictions on foreign nationals with histories of censoring Americans, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Wednesday.
“For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights,” Rubio wrote in an X post. “Free speech is essential to the American way of life — a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”
According to the secretary, this new policy “will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans.” Any noncitizen “who work[s] to undermine the rights of Americans should not enjoy the privilege of traveling to our country,” he added.
“Whether in Latin America, Europe, or elsewhere, the days of passive treatment for those who work to undermine the rights of Americans are over,” Rubio wrote.
As indicated by the former senator, Americans have often found themselves victimized by foreign figures engaged in enterprises devoted to censoring speech.
For example, until a few years ago, the British government funded what is known as the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a U.K.-based “disinformation” tracking organization that aims to blacklist and effectively cut off ad revenue to conservative-leaning news outlets, including The Federalist. As Victoria Marshall previously wrote in these pages, GDI’s “shadowy network of tracking groups labels the content on these independent news sites as disinformation so brands will not offer ads on their sites,” with a goal of “financially hurt[ing] independent publications and ultimately prevent[ing] them from disseminating content.”
The U.K. government’s embrace of censorship practices has received condemnation from President Trump and high-ranking administration officials (including Rubio). Commitments by the U.K. to end such practices against Americans and its own people were not included in the new tentative trade deal agreed to by Washington and London earlier this month, however.
[READ: By Defending Free Speech Worldwide, Team Trump Reclaims America’s Global Moral High Ground]
The newly announced visa restrictions represent the latest policy shift at the Rubio-led State Department that prioritizes protecting Americans’ speech.
Last month, the secretary of state revealed in these pages that the agency abolished what was once known as the Global Engagement Center (GEC). As The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland previously explained, GEC “funded the development of censorship tools” that work to silence (primarily conservative) speech online and “used ‘government employees to act as sales reps pitching … censorship products to Big Tech.’”
“The American people don’t need an obscure agency to ‘protect’ them from lies by pressuring X to ban users or trying to put The Federalist out of business,” Rubio wrote. “This administration will fight false narratives with true narratives, not with heavy-handed threats decreeing that only one ‘truth’ be visible online.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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