NEW YORK
\nThe chief of a prominent anti-disinformation watchdog has sued President Donald Trump\u2019s administration over a US visa ban, calling it an \u201cunconstitutional\u201d attempt to expel the permanent American resident, court filings show. Imran Ahmed, a British national who heads the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), was among five European figures involved in tech regulation whom the US State Department said this week would be denied visas.
\nThe department accused them of attempting to \u201ccoerce\u201d US-based social media platforms into censoring viewpoints they oppose. The European Union and several member states strongly condemned the move and vowed to defend Europe\u2019s regulatory autonomy.The campaigner filed his complaint Wednesday in a New York district court against Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, US Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
\nAhmed, a critic of billionaire Elon Musk, holds US permanent residency, commonly known as a \u201cgreen card.\u201d\u201dI am proud to call the United States my home,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cMy wife and daughter are American, and instead of spending Christmas with them, I am fighting to prevent my unlawful deportation from my home country.\u201d
\nAhmed faces the \u201cimminent prospect of unconstitutional arrest, punitive detention, and expulsion\u201d from the United States, the court filing said.However, a district judge granted a temporary restraining order barring Ahmed\u2019s arrest or detention, with a further hearing scheduled for Monday.
\nThe crackdown also targeted former European commissioner Thierry Breton, Anna-Lena von Hodenberg and Josephine Ballon of the German nonprofit HateAid, and Clare Melford, who leads the UK-based Global Disinformation Index. Condemning the move, the European Commission said it was seeking clarification from Washington, and if needed \u201cwill respond swiftly and decisively to defend our regulatory autonomy against unjustified measures.
\n\u201cBreton, the EC\u2019s former top tech regulator, often clashed with tycoons including Musk — a Trump ally — over their obligations to follow EU rules. The State Department has described him as the \u201cmastermind\u201d of the EU\u2019s Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes content moderation and other standards on major social media platforms operating in Europe. The DSA stipulates that major platforms must explain content-moderation decisions, provide transparency for users and ensure researchers can carry out essential work, such as understanding how much children are exposed to dangerous content.
\nBut the act has become a bitter rallying point for US conservatives who see it as a weapon of censorship against right-wing thought in Europe and beyond, an accusation the EU furiously denies.
\nAhmed\u2019s CCDH also frequently clashed with Musk, reporting a spike in misinformation and hate speech on X since the billionaire\u2019s 2022 takeover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NEW YORK The chief of a prominent anti-disinformation watchdog has sued President Donald Trump\u2019s administration over a US visa ban, calling it an \u201cunconstitutional\u201d attempt to expel the permanent American resident, court filings show. Imran Ahmed, a British national who heads the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), was among five European figures involved in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-522331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n