New Delhi, July 25 -- WASHINGTON - Thierry Breton was the European Union's former digital czar. Clare Melford ran a nonprofit tracing online falsehoods. Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg were German researchers studying how disinformation spreads. Imran Ahmed, a British-American permanent resident, had built an organization documenting coordinated manipulation campaigns. None of them expected to become the named targets of an American visa ban.

Then Secretary of State Marco Rubio put their names on a list.

In December 2025, Rubio announced a visa restriction policy targeting people deemed "complicit in censoring Americans," a designation the State Department applied broadly enough to reach fact-checkers, disinformation resear...