Secretary of State Marco Rubio has taken action against five individuals who have organized efforts to censor Americans. These individuals and entities have “advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states—in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” Rubio said.
Individuals engaging in censorship now face visa restrictions and will be “generally barred from entering the United States.” Some may further be deportable under the Department of Homeland Security’s removal proceedings.
“For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose. The Trump administration will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship,” Rubio announced on X, going on to say that the State Department will “take steps to bar leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States. We stand ready and willing to expand this list if others do not reverse course.”
The announcement expands upon one from May, when Rubio shared a “new visa restriction policy that will apply to foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans,” he said at the time. “Free speech is essential to the American way of life – a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.”
“In some instances, foreign officials have taken flagrant censorship actions against U.S. tech companies and U.S. citizens and residents when they have no authority to do so,” he explained, adding that it is “unacceptable” for foreign officials to threaten U.S. citizens or residents for posts made on American platforms on American soil.
