As part of the Trump administration’s drive to lionize the late Charlie Kirk and chill criticism of his politics, the State Department announced on Tuesday that it had revoked visas for a half-dozen noncitizens who had “celebrated” his assassination in recent weeks online.

The State Department shared the offending remarks in a thread on X, redacting the posters’ handles and avatars. Many of the comments were crass and incendiary — the kind of protected political speech at the heart of the First Amendment, which applies to citizens and noncitizens alike. One Argentine suggested that Kirk should “rest in fucking piss” because of his life devoted to “spreading racist, xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric,” while a Brazilian national asserted that Kirk “DIED TOO LATE.”

Nota Baloyi, a South African who spoke to The Intercept on Wednesday, had his visa revoked for tweeting that Kirk “won’t be remembered as a hero. He was used to astroturf a movement of white nationalist trailer trash!”

Baloyi told The Intercept that he deleted his post from X after South African right-wingers flagged it for the State Department by tagging Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who tweeted in the days after Kirk’s death that visa revocations were “under way” and that noncitizens who were “cheering on the public assassination of a political figure” should “prepare to be deported.” Baloyi disputed that his post was mocking or making light of Kirk’s death.

“While the government can revoke visas for many reasons, the First Amendment forbids it from doing so based on viewpoint.”

“I was keeping this matter to myself until the State Department posted about it,” said Baloyi, who is currently in South Africa and last visited the U.S. in 2023.

Last Friday he received a brief email notification from the U.S.........

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