Trump's week in review: Targeting ISIS in Nigeria, $3K to illegal immigrants who self-deport

3. Rubio imposes visa restrictions on ‘agents of the global censorship-industrial complex’

In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that the U.S. State Department was “taking decisive action against five individuals who have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose.”

Rubio stressed that “their entry, presence, or activities in the United States have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.”

“The Department has taken steps to impose visa restrictions on agents of the global censorship-industrial complex who, as a result, will be generally barred from entering the United States,” Rubio stated. “Further, based on the foreign policy determination, the Department of Homeland Security can initiate removal proceedings against certain individuals pursuant to [the Immigration and Nationality Act] section 237(a)(4)(C), which renders such individuals deportable.” 

Rubio said his actions are consistent with Trump’s foreign policy, rejecting “violations of American sovereignty” and “extraterritorial overreach by foreign censors targeting American speech.” While Rubio did not elaborate on the identity of the “agents of the global censorship-industrial complex,” Vice President JD Vance decried the European Union’s efforts to implement the Digital Services Act in a speech in Munich, Germany, earlier this year. 

One provision of the Digital Services Act seeks to limit Americans' speech on social media platforms.

“There can be no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions, and the conscience that guide your own people,” Vance warned, citing censorship efforts as evidence of “the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”