U.S. Department of State

The U.S. Department of State is the federal executive department responsible for foreign relations. Its consular officers at embassies and consulates decide visa applications, which gives the department a direct say over which foreign students, workers and journalists may enter the United States. Since 2009 it has also been involved in disputes over online speech, through its programs to counter foreign propaganda and, from 2025, through visa policies tied to applicants’ social media and to foreign content moderation.

Regulatory Authority

Origins: Congress created the Department of Foreign Affairs by an act of 27 July 1789 and renamed it the Department of State by an act of 15 September 1789.

Visa adjudication: Consular officers decide nonimmigrant and immigrant visa applications abroad, including the I visa issued to foreign journalists and media representatives. The Department of Homeland Security separately decides admission at the border and how long a visa holder may stay.

Information programs: The department has run offices aimed at countering foreign propaganda and disinformation — deliberately false or misleading information spread to deceive — abroad, most prominently the Global Engagement Center.

Political and Media Oversight

Global Engagement Center: Created by executive order in March 2016 and given a mandate by the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act to “recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda,” the center funded research and tools for tracking disinformation abroad. In 2023 The Federalist, The Daily Wire and the Texas attorney general sued the department, alleging that tools the center funded were used to target domestic media outlets in violation of the First Amendment. The center was later reorganized as the Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference office (R/FIMI).

Visa restrictions tied to content moderation: On 28 May 2025 Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a visa restriction policy covering foreign officials and others the department judges “complicit in censoring Americans,” citing foreign authorities’ demands that U.S. platforms apply their content rules globally and threats of arrest over posts made on U.S. soil.

Digital Era Adaptation

Platforms in foreign policy: In June 2009, during the protests that followed Iran’s presidential election, a department official asked Twitter to postpone scheduled maintenance that would have taken the service offline; Twitter rescheduled it. A department spokesperson explained the request by saying that “one of the areas where people are able to get out the word is through Twitter.”

Social media review of visa applicants: After pausing new student visa interviews in May 2025, the department resumed them in June 2025 with a requirement that F, M and J applicants set their social media accounts to public. Guidance to consular officers directed them to look for “hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States.” The department said the review “will ensure we are properly screening every single person attempting to visit our country.” Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the policy “makes a censor of every consular officer, and it will inevitably chill legitimate political speech both inside and outside the United States.” The review was extended to H-1B workers and their dependents in December 2025 and to further categories in March 2026.

Recent Activities

Closure of R/FIMI: On 16 April 2025 Rubio closed the R/FIMI office, saying it had “spent millions of dollars to actively silence and censor the voices of Americans they were supposed to be serving.” Officials who had worked at the center disputed that account, saying its work concerned foreign disinformation campaigns.

Foreign journalists: On 18 September 2026 the department announced that from 1 October it would review the online presence of applicants for I visas, along with TN and TD visas for Canadian and Mexican professionals and their dependents, and instructed them to set all social media profiles to “public” or “open.” The department said the review was meant to ensure that “applicants do not intend to cause harm to Americans or threaten U.S. interests,” and a spokesperson called a visa “a privilege, not a right.” A counsel at the American Immigration Lawyers Association said that without “clear, transparent standards, there’s a risk their visa decisions could be based on something very subjective.”