In a move that’s ignited a fierce national debate, the Trump Administration on Tuesday revoked the visas of six foreign nationals over social media posts celebrating the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The decision, announced via a series of posts by the State Department on X, comes at a time of heightened scrutiny over the boundaries of free speech, especially for non-citizens, and the role of government in policing online expression.
According to the State Department’s thread, the U.S. “has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans.” The agency shared screenshots of the offending posts—names redacted, but nationalities revealed—each followed by the blunt message: “Visa revoked.” Among the comments cited, an Argentine national declared Kirk “deserved” to burn in hell, a Mexican national opined that “there are people who would make the world better off dead,” and a Brazilian national wrote that Kirk “DIED TOO LATE.” Others from South Africa, Germany, and Paraguay were also named.
It remains unclear whether the individuals were in the U.S. at the time their visas were revoked. But the message was clear: the Trump Administration is drawing a hard line on what it views as anti-American speech from foreign nationals. This clampdown comes on the heels of President Donald Trump, in a dramatic White House ceremony, posthumously awarding Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—just weeks after Kirk was fatally shot during a speaking engagement at a Utah university on September 10, 2025.
The government’s response has not stopped at visa revocations. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau, the day after Kirk’s death, took to X to voice his disgust at those “praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event,” and urged the public to flag such comments by foreigners for “appropriate action” by consular officials. As Landau put it, “bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that U.S. consular officials could undertake appropriate action.”
Secretary Marco Rubio echoed this sentiment on September 15, stating, “If you’re a foreigner and you’re out there celebrating the assassination of someone who was speaking somewhere, I mean, we don’t want you in the country. Why would we want to give a visa to someone who think it’s good that someone was murdered in the public square? That’s just common sense to me.”
The crackdown has extended beyond foreign nationals. Vice President J.D. Vance encouraged Americans to report anyone celebrating Kirk’s death, saying, “Call them out, and hell, call their employer.” This led to tangible consequences: MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd was dismissed, and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show was temporarily taken off the air following related comments.
According to reporting from The Washington Post, nearly 300 Pentagon employees were investigated for Kirk-related online activity, resulting in three employees either being removed or leaving the military. The fallout also reached a FEMA employee and a Secret Service staffer, both placed on leave after making comments about Kirk’s assassination.
The Trump Administration has steadily expanded its surveillance of social media, especially in the context of immigration. In June, Rubio signed a directive requiring student visa applicants to set their social media accounts to public, allowing authorities to scrutinize for “hostile attitudes toward our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles; who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to U.S. national security; or who perpetrate unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence.” This move was spurred in part by a surge in pro-Palestinian activism on U.S. campuses, which the administration has characterized as antisemitic.
Furthermore, the State Department reportedly employed AI tools to screen student visa holders’ social media for “pro-Hamas” activity under a program dubbed “Catch-and-Revoke.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has also stated it will use social media analysis to detect “anti-Americanism” and “anti-semitic ideologies” among immigration applicants.
Since January, the administration has revoked more than 6,000 student visas, including several hundred for alleged support of terrorism. The policy has not been limited to students: in March, South Africa’s ambassador Ebrahim Rasool was expelled after accusing Trump of leading a supremacist movement. In June, British music duo Bob Vylan had their visas revoked after calling for death to the Israeli military during a U.K. performance.
While the Trump Administration insists that these actions are rooted in national security concerns, critics argue they amount to a selective crackdown on free speech. Ironically, the administration has positioned itself as a champion of the First Amendment: upon taking office for his second term, Trump signed an executive order denouncing government censorship as “intolerable,” and barring federal employees from “conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.” Rubio himself declared in May that America’s commitment to free speech “sets the U.S. apart as a beacon of freedom around the world.”
Yet, the administration has also pressured technology companies to remove content that it sees as contrary to its agenda. At the Justice Department’s request, Apple removed apps that allowed users to track the presence of ICE officials. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced on October 14 that Facebook had taken down a group page used to “dox and target” ICE agents in Chicago, with Meta confirming the removal for “violating our policies against coordinated harm.” Bondi stated in a social media post that the Department of Justice intends to “continue engaging” tech companies to “eliminate platforms” it deems dangerous.
This approach marks a notable shift from the previous administration. During Joe Biden’s presidency, federal officials also communicated with social media companies, urging them to curb the spread of misinformation—especially from foreign sources. However, these efforts were voluntary, and the Biden White House did not compel companies to remove content. Even so, conservatives decried the practice as a blatant First Amendment violation and an attack on free speech.
Now, with the tables turned, the Republican administration’s direct interventions have been met with a different tone from its supporters. As The New Republic observed, “when the Biden administration supported voluntary social media content moderation, it was an outrage worthy of many hours of congressional investigation and countless complaints from assorted conservative voices. When Team Trump does the same thing, it’s benign ‘outreach.’”
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, testifying before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee last year, expressed regret for cooperating with the Biden administration’s content moderation requests, stating, “I feel strongly that we should not compromise our content standards due to pressure from any Administration in either direction—and we’re ready to push back if something like this happens again.” Yet, Facebook complied with the Trump Justice Department’s recent request to take down the ICE group page.
These developments have raised pressing questions about the consistency and principles underlying U.S. free speech policy. The debate reached a legal crescendo on September 30, when a federal court ruled that non-citizens lawfully present in the U.S. have the same free speech rights as citizens. U.S. District Judge William Young wrote, “This case—perhaps the most important ever to fall within the jurisdiction of this district court—squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally ‘yes, they do.’”
As the U.S. government’s approach to online speech continues to evolve, the battle lines over the First Amendment—who it protects, and how—are being redrawn in real time. The implications for civil liberties, immigration, and the digital public square are likely to reverberate for years to come.
