Lawsuit Alleges Trump Administration's Visa Policy Chills Academic Research on Tech and Disinformation

An adjunct professor at a university in the eastern U.S. who studies online harms to children has left the country because they are not an American citizen and fear being denied a visa or deported.

At another university in the Northeast, a content moderation expert who has permanent resident status has shifted their focus to more "politically neutral" topics and stopped traveling internationally.

A professor in the South who studies the role of media in American politics has ceased publishing op-eds on their research and decided not to hold public events to promote a new book they wrote on disinformation, because they're worried they will lose their H-1B visa.

These accounts from people who would only speak anonymously are detailed in a new lawsuit filed against the Trump administration in Washington, D.C., federal court on Monday.

They are among a host of noncitizen academics and independent researchers who are living in "pervasive fear" of immigration enforcement that's having "chilling effects" on independent research and advocacy, the lawsuit alleges.

The suit accuses the administration of violating the First Amendment with an official policy to deny visas to or deport noncitizens who work on or study social media platforms, fact-checking or other activities the government deems "censorship" of Americans' speech. It argues that amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

"The Trump administration is engaged in a brazen and far-reaching campaign of censorship while cynical and falsely claiming that censorship is what it's fighting," the complaint says.

The suit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio, outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi as defendants.

In a statement, a State Department spokesperson who declined to give their name said: "A visa is a privilege, not a right. The United States is under no obligation to admit or suffer the presence of individuals who subvert our laws and deny our citizens their Constitutional rights."

The Department of Justice said in a statement that respects the First Amendment. "Federal law authorizing the removal of an alien 'whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States' is fully consistent with the First Amendment," the statement said. "DOJ will continue to defend against baseless lawsuits like this one that seek to weaken the Government's authority to enforce federal law and make America less safe."

The Homeland Security Department didn't respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit was filed by Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute and the legal nonprofit Protect Democracy on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR), a nonpartisan advocacy nonprofit whose members include researchers, academics, journalists and advocates who work outside the tech industry.

"These are researchers and scientists and students and teachers and nonprofit workers who are wondering, 'Should I buy a house? Should I travel to this family member's wedding? Should I start a new relationship?'" said Brandi Guerkink, CITR's executive director. "Because they fear that their safety and their ability to stay in the United States without being subject to detention in harrowing conditions or deportation is at risk."

President Trump and his allies have long cast tech companies' efforts to police what people post on their platforms, as well as research on those efforts and on the spread of false information online, as censorship. Amid a Republican political and legal campaign claiming conservative speech is unfairly muzzled online, tech companies have dialed back their policies and some researchers have abandoned the field.

Since Trump returned to office last year, his administration has widened its anti-censorship campaign to target foreign regulators and advocacy groups, and taken steps to sanction non-American individuals and organizations it accuses of stifling speech, the complaint argues.

In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the State Department would begin restricting visas from being issued to "foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans."

The administration quickly began acting on that policy. The State Department revoked visas in July for members of Brazil's Supreme Federal Court, as well as their family members, who were involved in prosecuting former President Jair Bolsonaro and briefly banning Elon Musk's X in 2024. The announcement cited the administration's intention to "hold accountable foreign nationals who are responsible for censorship of protected expression in the United States."

In early December, the State Department instructed staff to reject visa applications from people who worked in fields including fact-checking, online trust and safety, and combatting misinformation and disinformation.

On Dec. 23, Rubio announced visa bans on five Europeans. The bans targeted Thierry Breton, a former top European Union tech regulator who had clashed with Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, over the bloc's Digital Services Act, as well as advocates who lead research and advocacy groups focused on curbing online hate and disinformation, according to posts from Sarah Rogers, the Undersecretary of State for public diplomacy.

Rubio labeled the five "radical activists" who "have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose." He argued the visa restrictions were necessary because "their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States."

Rubio's statement also said the Department of Homeland Security could move to deport the banned individuals because of that threat to foreign policy.

Two of the banned individuals are CITR members: Imran Ahmed, who leads the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit advocacy group, and Clare Melford, executive director of the Global Disinformation Index, which monitors the spread of online disinformation.

Melford, a British citizen who lives in the U.K., was notified by email in late December that she was not authorized to travel to the U.S. and canceled a planned trip in January, the complaint said.

Ahmed lives in the U.S. and has permanent resident status. According to the complaint, Rubio sent a memo on Dec. 19 to DHS's Noem saying the State Department had determined Ahmed could be deported. Ahmed sued the government after Rubio's Dec. 23 announcement of the visa bans. A federal judge has temporarily blocked the government from arresting or detaining Ahmed while his case proceeds. (Ahmed and Melford are not parties in the lawsuit filed on Monday.)

"The Trump administration is using the threat of detention and deportation to suppress speech it disfavors," said Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute.

Like Breton, Ahmed has also tussled with X owner Musk, who campaigned for and donated to Trump in 2024 and spent several months last year working as a special government employee and overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency effort.

Musk unsuccessfully sued CCDH in 2023 after it released a report documenting an uptick in hate speech on X. Musk alleged the group violated the social media site's terms of service in gathering data for its reports. A judge dismissed the case, but Musk is appealing.

The complaint alleges Trump officials have "singled out for punishment" researchers and advocates who have criticized X in particular.

The Coalition for Independent Technology Research suit filed on Monday asks a federal judge to declare unconstitutional the Trump administration's policy targeting noncitizens who research and report on social media platforms, and to direct the government to abandon it.

"This policy appears to be so broad and vague that it casts a shadow over a vast range of protected activity," said Naomi Gilens, counsel at Protect Democracy. "The professionals working to keep the internet safe are left in fear, wondering whether doing their jobs could cost them their visas or trigger detention or deportation."

The complaint details the experiences of several noncitizen members of CITR who are described anonymously "because they fear that even their connection to this lawsuit could lead to the denial or revocation of their visas or detention and deportation under the Policy."

They describe changing the focus of their work, refraining from international travel, avoiding speaking publicly about their research, and self-censoring on social media and in published writing.

One visa holder at a university in the Midwest second-guesses what they write in communications with friends, family, and colleagues, "fearing that even their notes may later be seized, which could put others at risk of being targeted," according to the complaint.

"This policy is meant to censor researchers into silence and keep the public in the dark, and that's exactly what it's doing," CITR's Guerkink said.

The complaint also includes details about how the policy is affecting U.S. citizens. American members of CITR say their work has been disrupted because their noncitizen colleagues have had to step back and because they fear putting others at risk.

Guerkink said the threat to independent research comes at a time when such work is more critical than ever for holding tech companies accountable and informing the public.

"People are losing funding and jobs for doing this work," she said. "And this unjust censorship of research is really only growing with this policy."