The Trump administration has revoked the visas of at least six people it accuses of celebrating the September assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans,” the State Department wrote on X on Tuesday. “The State Department continues to identify visa holders who celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
As part of its announcement, the State Department pointed to individuals whose comments ranged from generic criticisms of Kirk’s views to outright celebration of his death, including an Argentinian who alleged Kirk “devoted his entire life spreading racist, xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric” and a German who allegedly wrote on social media that “when fascists die, democrats don’t complain.”
Soon after Kirk was killed, the State Department announced it would be seeking tips about foreigners praising Kirk’s death.
Tuesday’s announcement regarding the visas came the same day that President Trump posthumously awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, on what would’ve been his 32nd birthday.
The White House has made extensive efforts to mourn Kirk’s death.
Top administration officials including the president and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller spoke at a memorial service for Kirk in Arizona, and Vice President JD Vance stepped in to host a memorial episode of Kirk’s podcast from the White House.
In the wake of Kirk’s shooting, the administration has also sought to crack down on individuals and left-wing groups it accuses of fomenting the kind of political violence that killed Kirk, even as studies show right-wing extremists have killed more people in the U.S. in recent decades.
It has designated antifa, a leaderless ideological movement without any clear organizational structure, an official domestic terror group, while Attorney General Pam Bondi has threatened to prosecute Kirk-related “hate speech,” a category of expression protected in almost all circumstances by the First Amendment, and private businesses that protest Kirk.
Last month, a federal judge ruled the administration’s moves to revoke visas and detain pro-Palestinian students and university faculty for their views amounted to a “full-throated assault on the First Amendment across the board under the cover of an unconstitutionally broad definition” of antisemitism.
