Don’t Silence Foreign Correspondents: Oppose DHS’s New Visa Rules
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has unveiled a new proposal to place strict limits on the rules governing visas that allow foreign reporters to live and work in the United States. Currently, visas are valid indefinitely provided that journalists adhere to the regulations guiding their allocation. Under the new system, reporters could be forced to leave after just 240 days.
The instability such a proposal creates is not just bureaucratic, it is a direct blow to reporting. Journalists forced to rely on short-term visas would struggle to rent homes, open bank accounts, or put down the roots needed to properly understand the communities they cover. Instead of offering deep, sustained reporting on American politics, culture, and society, their work would risk being rushed, fragmented, and shallow.
We have seen this before. In 2021, an international coalition of press freedom organisations came together to fight a nearly identical plan, and won. DHS withdrew its new rules after widespread opposition. Four years later, the stakes are just as high.
We are once again calling on media organisations around the world to join the media industry in resisting this proposal. A draft statement, co-ordinated by the EBU, is circulating, and we are supporting this initiative by collecting signatories ahead of its publication by Wednesday, 10th September. If your newsroom has journalists working in the United States, we urge you to add your name to this form by Monday, 8th September and we will share with the EBU.
In addition to signing the joint statement, every contribution to the DHS public consultation process, closing 29th September, matters. Many voices, not just one, will show the breadth of opposition to this harmful plan.
Read the full proposal here
Show your support by adding your organization’s name before 8th September.
A free press depends on the ability of journalists to stay, observe, and report without fear of being cut off mid-story. Let us make sure foreign correspondents in the U.S. can keep doing their jobs.
