Exclusive: New legislation would deport foreign officials who censor Americans

Foreign government officials who censor Americans would be both inadmissible to the United States and deportable, under legislation Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) is introducing. “Deny our citizens their First Amendment rights, and this country will deny you entry to America or show you the door,” Issa warned.

The No Censors on our Shores Act, obtained exclusively by the Washington Reporter, amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to read that “any alien who, while serving as a foreign government official, was responsible for or directly carried out, at any time, any act against a United States citizen located in the United States that, if committed by a United States government official in the United States, would violate the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, is inadmissible [and deportable].”

“Wherever the free speech rights of Americans are under attack around the world, we won’t just see it, we’ll stop it,” Issa, who sits on both the Judiciary and Foreign Affairs Committees, said. Joining Issa in sponsoring the bill are Reps. Maria Salazar (R., Fla.), Michael Baumgartner (R., Wash.) and Brandon Gill (R., Texas).

The bill, if passed, could pose problems for countries like Brazil, which have shuttered companies like X, formerly Twitter, in ways that could have run afoul of U.S. law. “Last year, we saw a shameful abuse of power by the Supreme Court in Brazil that targeted and American citizen named Elon Musk and blocked access to X, a privately held American company — and we haven’t forgotten it,” Issa said. “The Biden administration and its allies did nothing to stop this and much to encourage it. That’s over.”

“Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes is the vanguard of an international assault on freedom of speech against American citizens like Elon Musk,” Salazar added. “Freedom of Speech is a natural and inalienable right which knows no borders. The enforcers of censorship are not welcome in the land of the free, the United States.”

“This bill is about safeguarding our fundamental freedoms from foreign censorship,” Baumgartner said. “Our message is clear: censorship has no place here.”

“Free speech is one of the core constitutional amendments that makes America the greatest nation in the world. Any foreign official who has the audacity to violate this God-given right should not be allowed into our country,” Gill said. “Rep. Issa’s No Censors on Our Shores Act hits the nail on the head, and I am proud to be a co-lead on this effort.”

A similar proposal stalled in the last Congress — but with unified GOP control, and with an influx of Silicon Valley tech executives in the administration, including Elon Musk, David Sacks, and JD Vance, there could be a better chance of passage.