The State Department announced Tuesday that it had revoked the visas of six people who made inflammatory comments on social media regarding the assassination of a conservative activist. Charlie Kirk.
The six people – none of whom were named – were from Argentina, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, Germany and Paraguay, the department said in a series of X-rated messages. Some of them made comments suggesting Kirk deserved to be killed.
“The United States has no obligation to harbor foreigners who wish Americans dead,” the State Department wrote on X. “The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
The State Department did not say whether any of these individuals were currently in the United States or what types of visas they held. CBS News has contacted the department for more information.
A day after Kirk was killed on a Utah college campus, a top State Department official vowed to take “appropriate action” against any visa holder who praised or made light of Kirk’s death — and urged people to send in any concerning messages they see.
Days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “visa revocations are underway.”
Kirk was shot and killed Sept. 10 while speaking to students at Utah Valley University for an event hosted by Turning Point USA, a group he co-founded. Authorities said the gunman shot Kirk with a rifle from the roof of a nearby campus building.
After a two-day manhunt, a 22-year-old Utah man identified as Tyler Robinson was arrested for the murder. State Attorneys having invoiced Robinson for aggravated murder.
Revocations are part of a broader repression on comments that mock or celebrate Kirk’s death. THE Pentagon and the Secret service sidelined military members or agents who wrote negative posts about Kirk on social media, and Vice President JD Vance encouraged people to call the employers of anyone celebrating Kirk’s murder.
The Trump administration has also sought to revoke visas in other circumstances. He pushes to expel several international students which are linked to campus protests against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip, accusing them of anti-Semitic rhetoric – which the students have denied. And he revoked the visa of Colombian President Gustavo Petro last month for encouraging U.S. troops to disobey President Trump’s orders during a protest in New York.
The government’s legal authority to deny or revoke visas on free speech grounds is an unresolved question, Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor emeritus who has written extensively on the First Amendment, told CBS News. The Supreme Court has ruled that the government has wide latitude to refuse to admit people into the country, but it is less clear whether federal officials can deport people who are already in the United States because of their speech.
Volokh stated that noncitizens “enjoy the same First Amendment protections against, for example, criminal sanctions or civil liability as citizens.”
“But when it comes to the question of expulsion or exclusion from the country in the first place, the rules prove uncertain,” he said.
