Donald Trump faces legal battle after hitting ex-Labour adviser with visa sanction

Imran Ahmed, a friend of Keir Starmer’s top adviser in No10, Morgan McSweeney – was targeted by the US administration over his work with the Centre of Countering Digital Hate

A former Labour adviser has taken legal action against Donald Trump’s administration after being one of five Europeans hit with visa sanctions.

Imran Ahmed, a friend of Keir Starmer’s top adviser in No10, Morgan McSweeney – was targeted by the US over his work with the Centre of Countering Digital Hate (CDHC). Mr Ahmed was accused by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio of leading “efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose, who are now “generally barred from entering the United States”.

Mr Ahmed has now filed against Mr Rubio, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, accusing them of an “unconstitutional attempt to arrest and expel him from the United States”.

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He said: “My life’s work is to protect children from the dangers of unregulated social media and AI and fight the spread of antisemitism online.

“That mission has pitted me against big tech executives – and Elon Musk in particular – multiple times. I am proud to call the United States my home. My wife and daughter are American, and instead of spending Christmas with them, I am fighting to prevent my unlawful deportation from my home country.”

The former Labour Party adviser from Manchester, is the chief executive of the CCDH, which previously listed Mr McSweeney as a director until his resignation when Mr Starmer became Labour leader in April 2020.

The filing argued Mr Ahmed is a lawful permanent resident and lives in the United States with his wife, who is a U.S. citizen, and their young child, who is also a U.S. citizen.

It claims he is being punished for the research and public reporting carried out by CCDH, which studies the policies of social media companies, including Elon Musk’s X. He argues there is no credible argument for Mr. Ahmed’s immigration detention, and that he faces an unconstitutional arrest.

Roberta Kaplan, counsel for Mr Ahmed, added: “Instead of spending Christmas with his wife and child, he has been forced to spend the holiday fighting to prevent his unlawful deportation. It is hard to think of anything more un-American than that.”

Mr Ahmed previously told the Triggernometry podcast that the origin of CCDH came while working as an adviser to Labour MP Hilary Benn, who was Shadow Foreign Secretary at the time. He has said he was inspired to start the organisation after seeing the rise of antisemitism on the left in the UK and the murder of his colleague, Jo Cox MP, by a white supremacist.

Clare Melford, another British-based executive who runs the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), was also identified as one of the five Europeans who will be barred from entering the US. A GDI spokesperson told The Mirror : “The visa sanctions announced today are an authoritarian attack on free speech and an egregious act of government censorship.”