Academics, journalists and researchers notched a victory in federal court this month as a judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing an immigration policy restricting people who the U.S. government says are “complicit in censoring Americans.”
The policy — which would block entry into the U.S. or lead to deportation — “sweeps into the category of ‘foreign censorship’ a substantial measure of the research, reporting, advocacy, and association through which (the plaintiffs) and institutions like it carry out their protected work, and it does so on the basis of viewpoint, in violation of the First Amendment,” Federal District Judge James Boasberg wrote in his July 14 ruling.
The ruling effectively suspends the policy’s enforcement until litigation is complete.
Boasberg wrote that the question of how tech platforms should operate is a site of contested debate: “Online platforms now carry an outsized share of our political arguments, exchange of critical news, and commerce, as well as much of our private conversations. This migration away from traditional forms of media has recast a timeless question: how, and by whom, should the bounds of public debate be drawn?”
The Trump administration, he determined, took one side of the argument and used visa policy to create hurdles for the other side.
“Much of American political debate consists of disagreement over whether a practice is liberty or regulation, safety or suppression, accountability or censorship. The First Amendment does not permit officials to resolve that dispute by attaching legal burdens to the side they condemn,” he wrote.
The government has requested time to determine whether to appeal, and it has 60 days to file a notice of appeal.
Boasberg’s ruling “concluded that the policy unconstitutionally discriminates against one set of viewpoints in the public debate surrounding social media,” said Carrie DeCell, a senior staff attorney and legislative adviser at the Knight First Amendment Institute who argued the case in federal court in Washington, D.C., on May 13.
“Today’s ruling is a major victory in our ongoing fight to protect free speech and independent technology research,” Nicole Schneidman, tech counsel and policy strategist at Protect Democracy, another plaintiff, said in a statement. “The court’s order allows researchers and advocates who study and report on online trust and safety to continue their important work without the fear of retaliatory visa denials or deportations while we continue to advocate for permanent relief.”
The Trump administration has often characterized content moderation on social media platforms, such as fact-checking, as censorship. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued the policy in May 2025.
The State Department said five people were “sanctioned” under the policy: Thierry Breton of France, a former European commissioner for internal markets and digital services; Imran Ahmed, a lawful U.S. permanent resident and the founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate; Clare Melford of the United Kingdom, co-founder of the Global Disinformation Index; and Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg of Germany, co-founders of the group HateAid.
In December 2025, news outlets reported that the State Department had instructed U.S. consular officers to scrutinize visa applicants for evidence of their work in such fields as misinformation, disinformation, fact-checking, content moderation, trust and safety, and compliance. People the U.S. government considers to be “complicit in censorship” could lose their ability to visit or live in the U.S.
In a Dec. 23 post on X, Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers said the five sanctioned people were “illustrative not exhaustive,” and that she and Rubio were “ready and willing to expand” the list.
In its motion replying to the lawsuit, the federal government defended the policy, saying that its “broad sweep is targeted toward deterring foreign censorship of American speech” and that as secretary of state, Rubio has a “legitimate reason for denying visas to those that seek to suppress Americans’ constitutional rights.”
The Coalition for Independent Technology Research, which sued to block the policy, disagreed. In oral arguments, DeCell said the policy also violates the Fifth Amendment right to due process protections and the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which determines how the government makes policy.
The International Fact-Checking Network — which is owned by the Poynter Institute — filed a brief supporting the plaintiffs. The IFCN brief warned that the policy would “dissuade foreign journalists from challenging, fact-checking, or even accurately reporting on the Trump administration for fear of retribution.”
The case is Coalition for Independent Technology Research v. Rubio.
