US ‘weaponizes' visas with curbs on opponents
WASHINGTON: The United States said Wednesday it will refuse visas to foreign officials who block Americans' social media posts, as President Donald Trump's administration wages a new battle over free expression. Secretary of State Marco Rubio – who has controversially rescinded visas for activists who criticize the Zionist entity and ramped up screening of foreign students' social media – said he was acting against 'flagrant censorship actions' overseas against US tech firms.
He did not publicly name any official who would be denied a visa under the new policy. But last week he suggested to lawmakers that he was planning sanctions against a Brazilian Supreme Court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, who has battled X owner and Trump ally Elon Musk over alleged disinformation. The administration of Trump – himself a prolific and often confrontational social media user – has also sharply criticized Germany and Britain for restricting what the US allies' governments term hate and abusive speech.
Rubio on Tuesday suspended further appointments for students seeking visas to the United States until the State Department drafts new guidelines on enhanced screening of applicants' social media postings. Rubio said the United States will begin to restrict visas to foreign nationals who are responsible for 'censorship of protected expression in the United States'. 'It is unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on US citizens or US residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on US soil,' Rubio said in a statement.
'It is similarly unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States,' he said. 'We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty, especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech.'
Rubio has said he has revoked the US visas for thousands of people, largely students who have protested against Israel's offensive in Gaza. Among the most visible cases has been Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University who had written an opinion piece in a student newspaper criticizing the school's position on Gaza. Masked agents arrested her on a Massachusetts street and took her away. A judge recently ordered her release.
Social media regulation has become a rallying cry for many on the American right since Trump was suspended from Twitter, now X, and Facebook on safety grounds after his supporters attacked the US Capitol following his defeat in the 2020 election to Joe Biden. In Brazil, where supporters of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro similarly stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in 2023 after Bolsonaro's election loss, Moraes has said he is seeking to protect democracy through his judicial power.
Moraes temporarily blocked X across Brazil until it complied with his order to remove accounts accused of spreading disinformation. More recently he ordered a suspension of Rumble, a video-sharing platform popular with conservative and far-right voices over its refusal to block the account of a user based in the United States who was wanted for spreading disinformation.
Germany – whose foreign minister met Wednesday with Rubio – restricts online hate speech and misinformation, saying it has learned a lesson from its Nazi past and will ostracize extremists. US Vice President JD Vance in a speech in Munich in February denounced Germany for shunning the far-right, noting the popularity of its anti-immigrant message.
In an essay Tuesday, a State Department official pointed to social media regulations and said Europeans were following a 'similar strategy of censorship, demonization and bureaucratic weaponization' as witnessed against Trump and his supporters. 'What this reveals is that the global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy,' wrote Samuel Samson, a senior advisor for the State Department's human rights office. 'Rather, it is trampling democracy, and Western heritage along with it, in the name of a decadent governing class afraid of its own people.'
The suspension of student visa processing came as Harvard students protested on Tuesday after the government said it intended to cancel all remaining financial contracts, Trump's latest attempt to force the institution to submit to unprecedented oversight. Trump is furious at Harvard for rejecting his administration's push for oversight on admissions and hiring, amid the president's claims the school is a hotbed of anti-Semitism and 'woke' liberal ideology.
A judge issued a restraining order pending a hearing on the matter scheduled for Thursday, the same day as the university's graduation ceremony for which thousands of students and their families had gathered in Cambridge, Massachusetts near Boston. The White House, meanwhile, doubled down in its offensive, saying that public money should go to vocational schools that train electricians and plumbers.
'The president is more interested in giving that taxpayer money to trade schools and programs and state schools where they are promoting American values, but most importantly, educating the next generation based on skills that we need in our economy and our society,' spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News Tuesday.
Harvard itself has filed extensive legal challenges against Trump's measures. Alumni plan to file a legal brief against Trump on June 9, filmmaker Anurima Bhargava told a virtual meeting staged by Crimson Courage, a grassroots alumni group. The group is gathering thousands of signatures to show the courts the depth of support for the existing legal action. The Trump administration is also piling financial pressure on Harvard. It has announced the cutting of Harvard's government contracts, estimated by US media to be worth $100 million. – Agencies
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