Why is the Trump administration targeting foreign journalists?

For more than 40 years, a Reagan-era policy enabled foreign correspondents to stay in the U.S. lawfully as long as their job required. This summer, the Department of Homeland Security announced these journalists will face restrictive new visa requirements that could be abused to punish those critical of the Trump administration.  

The new rules would cap journalists’ initial admission to no more than 240 days (less than eight months), eliminating a flexible and welcoming policy that has lasted decades across both Republican and Democratic administrations.  

Although the U.S. has long been a champion of press freedom, the Trump administration has shown itself to be unabashedly antagonistic toward the media. The new policy disturbingly echoes those found in Russia, China and Iran, which use strict visa compliance rules to punish journalists and media outlets that report on their governments unfavorably. 

Across the government, agencies have taken extreme actions to arrest and charge journalists; issue subpoenas, including to journalists’ family members; shut down access to the White House and the Pentagon; threaten broadcasters; and sue news outlets. The most egregious acts have been tied to the immigration crackdown, including revoking visas, detaining and even deporting foreign journalists.

Taken together, this shows a pattern of hostility unlike any in modern U.S. history, one in which the federal government aims to pacify and impose its views on the free press and imperils the rights enshrined in the First Amendment.

For decades, the Reagan-era policy........

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