July 14, 2026
A US federal court has stayed the immigration policy used to ban GDI CEO Clare Melford and other civil society leaders from travelling to the United States.
Judge James Boasberg of the US District Court for the District of Columbia has stayed a US immigration policy that targeted noncitizen researchers, advocates, fact-checkers, and trust and safety professionals for visa denials, revocations, detention, and deportation on the basis of their work. The stay halts enforcement while the litigation proceeds.
The ruling comes in a case brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and Protect Democracy on behalf of the Coalition for Independent Technology Research (CITR), of which GDI is a member. It bars the government from enforcing the policy while the case proceeds.
In December last year, the State Department banned five Europeans from travel to the United States, among them GDI's CEO and co-founder, Clare Melford. Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterised those targeted as "radical activists" and part of a so-called "censorship industrial complex."
Judge Boasberg's ruling establishes that the activities cited by the government, including the research and analysis GDI provides, fall squarely under the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.
Responding to the decision, Clare Melford said: "This is a victory for free speech and a defeat for those who fear it. GDI informs free market transactions in online advertising. Banning me as CEO from travel to the United States was an unacceptable attempt by the government to censor me and interfere in the free market."
GDI's work, providing independent, transparent data on disinformation risk to advertisers, ad tech companies, and platforms, exists to inform free market decisions, not to suppress speech. Independent research into the monetisation of harmful content online is of critical public value: to the platforms monitoring their own impact and regulatory compliance, to the regulators designing and enforcing rules such as the EU's Digital Services Act, and to lawmakers and the publics they represent.
The court's stay of the policy is a significant milestone, but the litigation is ongoing. GDI will continue to support CITR, the Knight First Amendment Institute, and Protect Democracy as the case proceeds, and to defend the right of researchers everywhere to study the impact of technology on society free from government intimidation.
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Photo by Giammarco Boscaro