The Trump administration is preparing to keep foreign fact-checkers and online moderation staff out of the United States, turning a long-running political grievance about “censorship” into formal visa policy. A leaked US State Department memo shows consular officers will now be asked to treat work in these fields as a potential ground for refusal.

According to the directive, issued on December 2 and circulated to US embassies and consulates, visa officers must deny entry to applicants, including H-1B tech workers, journalists and online moderators, who are judged to have been “responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States.”

The memo instructs officials to go beyond routine background checks and dig into applicants’ profe

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