Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara embraces his sister-in-law Gina Saenz upon arriving at a relative’s home after being deported from the United States, in Apopa, El Salvador, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Salvador Melendez) On July 17, 2026, the Department of Homeland Security issued a new regulation that dramatically restricts foreign reporters’ ability to work independently in the U.S. The new rule, which takes effect in 60 days, would enable the U.S. government to reward favored journalists and punish perceived opponents; invite other countries to retaliate against American reporters abroad; and signal broad distrust of the press at a time when journalists already face deadly targeting. Amid the Trump administration’s broader effort to restrict press freedoms here at home, Congress must step in to limit the damage.
The regulation cuts the length of journalist visas — known as I-visas (for the section of the law that authorizes them) — down to eight months. The previous unlimited time frame offered stability and predictability. Under the new rule, journalists are required to re-apply every eight months, though the rule doesn’t offer clear standards for review. This puts journalists in a fragile situation.
This latest move is one in a series of limitations on the press, including lawsuits against media outlets for unfavorable coverage, limiting press access at the Pentagon, and most recently subpoenas served on New York Times reporters for publishing information about security features of the new Air Force One gifted by Qatar.
The rule proposed last fall seemed to include journalist visas as an afterthought (for a review of the main parts of the regulation on student and exchange visas see this analysis by the Brookings Institution). And the administration cherry-picked data to argue that the number of I-visas granted each year has significantly increased since 1985 when the current rule was enacted. Only 12,924 I-visas were approved in 2024, less than the 16,753 the rule says were issued in 1985. There was no clear rationale offered for the changes to the I-visa.
The Department of Homeland Security received nearly 22,000 comments in response to the proposed rule, nearly all critical of the change.
For instance, the Writers Guild of America East, a labor union for journalists, noted that the regulation sets up bureaucratic hurdles that the government could use to reward journalists it approves of while punishing journalists it finds disagreeable. That amounts to censorship.
The concern is not theoretical. Over the last year, the U.S. government retaliated against at least two international journalists who wrote critically about the Trump administration. Mario Guevara, an Emmy award-winning reporter in Atlanta, was arrested last June by ICE after live-streaming commentary on a No Kings protest. He was deported to El Salvador after three months in ICE detention. And in March of this year, journalist Estefany Maria Rodriguez Florez was arrested, allegedly because of her reporting on ICE activities.
Those arrests run counter to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech, which a court recently reiterated applies to citizens and noncitizens alike.
The regulation also invites other countries to retaliate against American journalists abroad, as the labor union NewsGuild-CWA pointed out. That has happened before. When the U.S. imposed restrictions on Chinese journalists in 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, China slowed visa processing for U.S. journalists operating there. And in 2024, Russia banned 92 U.S. journalists from the country, contending it was retaliating for anti-Russian reporting. Reporters Without Borders, an organization working to protect independent journalism, summed it up: “Maintaining fair and predictable visa procedures for foreign journalists is essential to protecting reciprocal treatment for American media professionals.”
Yet the regulation was finalized without sufficiently addressing any of those concerns.
More broadly, the rule signals the U.S. government’s distrust of journalists at a time when they face deadly targeting around the world. Sixty-seven journalists were killed last year, while 503 were detained, 135 were reported missing, and 20 were held hostage, according to Reporters Without Borders.
Congress must take action. Lawmakers should exercise their oversight authority and hold hearings on the rule’s likely effects on freedom of the press.
Congress should also pass legislation to stop the rule from taking effect and even expand protections for journalists. In 2021, in the wake of the murder of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi, Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) co-sponsored the International Press Freedom Act, a strong bipartisan bill that included an expansion of the I-visa to include journalists threatened while working abroad. That bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee, but went no further. If we believe in a free press, Congress must do more to allow journalists to do their critical work freely and safely.
At a time when freedom of the press is under attack around the world, the U.S. increasingly risks being perceived as a repressive regime instead of an example to the world of what a free press can be. Congress can’t let that happen.
Margy O’Herron is a fellow in Cornell’s Migration and Human Rights Program and a senior fellow in the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. Dan Berger is also a fellow in the Cornell program, and a partner at Green and Spiegel LLC leading the academic and medical immigration team.
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