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Deputy
secretary of state says ‘foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not
welcome visitors’
Lucy
Campbell
Thu 11
Sep 2025 18.10 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/christopher-landau-charlie-kirk-foreigners
Action
will be taken against foreigners in the United States who are considered to be
“praising, rationalizing, or making light of” Charlie Kirk’s death, a top state
department official has said.
The
statement comes in a wider context of an aggressive crackdown on free speech
and dissenting views in the US under the second Trump administration,
especially when it comes to campus protests sparked by Israel’s war on Gaza.
In a post
on X on Thursday morning, the deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau,
wrote that “foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors
to our country” and said he had directed consular officials to “undertake
appropriate action” against those deemed to be “praising, rationalizing, or
making light of” Kirk’s death on social media.
Landau
invited X users to bring such cases to his attention in the comments of his
post, which he said would be monitored by consular officials.
Kirk, a
close Trump ally and rightwing provocateur, was shot and killed while speaking
at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday. His death
has shocked the nation and prompted outrage across the political spectrum.
A state
department spokesperson said: “This administration does not believe that the
United States should grant visas to persons whose presence in our country does
not align with US national security interests.”
Previously
the Trump administration has directed investigators at Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (Ice), who would typically target human traffickers and drug
smugglers, to track down foreign students who may have shown sympathy for the
Palestinian cause or criticized Israel in social media posts. The
administration has gone after those who have taken part in pro-Palestinian
demonstrations across university campuses.
Investigators
also now look for “anti-American” views, including on social media, when
assessing the applications of people wanting to live in the United States, with
diplomats instructed to look for “indications of hostility towards citizens,
culture or founding principles of United States” in someone’s online presence.
Diplomats
must flag any “advocacy for, aid or support for foreign terrorists and other
threats to US national security” and “support for unlawful antisemitic
harassment or violence”.
New
social media vetting measures for international students applying to study in
the US even include a requirement for individuals to unlock their social media
profiles for review before receiving educational and exchange visas.
Expanding
such social media vetting to encompass commentary on an event such as Kirk’s
death would be a significant expansion of the administration’s efforts to
restrict dissenting views and opinions, particularly of “foreigners” in the US.
Trump,
along with other prominent conservatives and Republicans, have been quick to
blame “radical left political violence” for Kirk’s killing.
In a
speech in the Oval Office, the US president called Kirk the “best of America”,
and listed acts of violence that he attributed to the left while omitting
violence against Democrats, such as the murder of Melissa Hortman, a prominent
Minnesota state lawmaker, and her husband, and the shooting of another
Democratic state lawmaker and his wife in June.
Meanwhile,
MSNBC fired its senior political analyst Matthew Dowd after he suggested on air
that Kirk’s own radical rhetoric may have contributed to the circumstances
around his assassination. Kirk had a history of rightwing provocation and
Christian nationalism, and frequently espoused bigoted rhetoric about Islam,
women , LGBTQ+ communities and people of color.
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