Trump is using immigration policy to suppress speech, lawsuit claims

Source: NPR

Updated March 9, 2026 2:47 PM ET


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.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/09/nx-s1-5741213/trump-censorship-visas-deportation-lawsuit