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I am writing to urge the Department of Homeland Security to withdraw its August 28, 2025 proposal to limit the duration of visas for foreign journalists in the United States.
These changes would harm press freedom and American interests more broadly by introducing the following unnecessary barriers and serious risks:
- Excessive administrative burden and uncertainty: Requiring frequent renewals every few months would distract journalists from their core work, and create anxiety about whether the visas they rely on for their livelihood will be renewed.
- Chilling effect on press freedom: Continuous scrutiny by government officials on an individual exercising their constitutional right to free speech, especially with the life-altering consequences of denying a visa based on an officer’s broad discretion, could lead to self-censorship and severely inhibit the freedom of the press in the US.
- Potential abuse: The new visa restrictions will leave journalists wondering if their visas will be cancelled because a single bureaucrat disapproved of the content of their journalism.
- Diminishing the standing of the United States abroad: Billions of people around the world, speaking thousands of languages, rely daily on journalists who understand their culture, as well as the context in the US. The absence of this reporting will diminish the standing of the United States while empowering its potential adversaries to fill gaps in reporting.
- Empowering authoritarian censors abroad: Requiring a journalist to be a representative of a foreign media organization will disproportionately harm independent journalists from repressive countries like Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, who are likely to not have a formal relationship with media in the country and more likely to face repression if expelled from the US.
Given these self-defeating and concerning consequences, I strongly urge the Department of Homeland Security to abandon this proposal. Preserving freedom of speech and of the press by allowing law-abiding journalists to tell America’s story to their global audience makes America stronger and helps us live up to our founding principles.
Thank you for your attention to this critical matter.
Sincerely,
[Your Name]
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