Wait, what? If this is accurate, and I hope it’s not, someone has gone loco at the State Department. Reports say that the State Department, presumably with the assent or at the behest of President Trump, has sanctioned Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestine. This freezes any assets Albanese has in the US and restricts her travel to the U.S.
As justification for the sanctions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, “We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty.”
Albanese is an affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University and teaches a course on “humanitarian, legal and political responses to the Palestinian forced displacement” as a non-resident professor at a number of foreign universities. Albanese worked for two years at the UN Development Programme in Morocco as well as four years in Geneva as a human rights officer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Outside of the UN, she provides research and legal assistance on migration and asylum seekers for the think tank called “Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development,” and co-founded the Global Network on the Question of Palestine, a group of experts and scholars engaged in the issue of Israel and Palestine.
OK, she supports the eradication of Israel. So does The Squad. I’m not seeing “warfare against America” here. What am I missing? What I see is the Trump Administration’s obvious rejection of the First Amendment and the core principles it represents.
Talk isn’t warfare; words aren’t warfare. Albanese has been calling for international investigations of the U.S. and Israel and Israelis over the Gaza war. Sure, she’s an anti-Semite: in an open letter posted on a personal Facebook account in 2014 she claimed that “the Jewish lobby” controlled the United States’ stance on Israel. So what? She says offensive and annoying things; she advises the U.N. to escalate its anti-Israel bias. Nevertheless the United States shouldn’t be sanctioning anyone for their position or opinion.
I bet I could find hundreds of professors, maybe thousands, who inject more harmful ideas and positions into our university’s students’ developing minds. I don’t think these professors should be on faculties, but that’s not any of the State Department’s concern.
Ethics Alarms 
The statement from Rubio was released on July 9th is based on the following:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/12/2025-02612/imposing-sanctions-on-the-international-criminal-court
She is an Italian citizen and an UN official. Looks like another example of which rights under the US Constitution apply to foreigners? If she has not been extended diplomatic immunity by the USA, this seems like a legal act.
The US could have just denied her a visa, but disallowing her to have business connections here is a step up.
She’s still teaching at an American University, presumably legally. The government can’t stop her based on what she’s teaching.
Hmm, maybe threats against American University are next? Cancel grants for all faculty at American U to combat anti-semitism. Cancel visas for all foreign students and faculty at American U? After all, it’s in the name, right? Only Americans should be at American University! USA! USA!
Now see, I don’t think sarcasm is a useful or productive way to discuss these issues, and I surge you to do better. The issue isn’t whether only American should be at out universities, but whether there should be such a huge percentage of foreign students, especially at our elite schools, when most of them have no intention of using our educational resources to benefit this country. This kind of comment with mocking “USA!” chants reads as reflex deflection without thought. Maybe because it is?
I am afraid that Trump and MAGA conservatives are pushing the envelope on immigration policy pertaining to those who are here legally, and by doing so creating tension between the First Amendment and immigration policy. An example already mentioned on Ethics Alarms is the attempt to deport green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, because of his activism related to Gaza.
The Federalist is pushing the envelop even further by advocating to strip NY mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani from his USA citizenship, claiming immigration fraud, because Mamdani was not candid with USCIS about his political views.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/07/11/denaturalize-and-deport-zohran-mamdani-for-immigration-fraud/
In my opinion this is all misguided. Clarence Darrow stated that in order to have enough freedom, it is necessary to have too much freedom. This is especially true for free speech rights. The USA should not want to become like the UK and other countries that ban speakers based on their viewpoints; the UK once banned Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of parliament with views on immigration similar to Trump’s, when the UK was still in the EU, with free travel between EU members due to the Schengen treaty.
Having read through the document posted by James Harrison above, it seems that the root of this is that the State Dept. is slapping down hard on a UN/ICC effort to do a “criminal investigation” on (and . . . presumably, in due time . . . attempt to levy some sort of judgement and punishment for) the U.S. Government and the Government of Israel.
The method in question is to revoke status, deport, and freeze assets to anyone involved in this effort.
Assuming that Francesca Albanese is considered a part of this effort (and yes that IS a conclusion I’m jumping to), then this isn’t at all about sanctioning her for any sort of speech while within the U.S. but rather about punishing those who’d go as far as taking some sort of punitive action against the U.S. and Israel through the U.N. and the ICC. I’m also presuming that Albanese isn’t the only person who will or has been targeted in this way.
Is it harsh? Yes, definitely. But I can see that the intent behind this is to send a message and set an example, not to be fair and proportional. In that sense, I can see this as a justifiable measure as a big-picture State Department foreign policy action–and not as a Justice Department immigration policy action, which it appears it really isn’t.
Naturally, if it turns out that she has nothing to do with the ICC investigation and/or is the only one targeted in this way, then I withdraw the statement, Your Honor.
–Dwayne
The Annex to the posted State Department release was the ICC Prosecutor that is “making the case” against the US and Israel. This is nation state level politics, ethics gets complicated when you are discussing things at this level.
This is a completely reasonable response to a foreigner attempting to threaten US interests, and has nothing to do with her speech rights. In her official capacity she has threatened investigations using the ICC, to which we are not a signatory.
In fact, it’s a brilliant use of force against a belligerent.
Nevertheless the United States shouldn’t be sanctioning anyone for their position or opinion.
Here are some quotes from an article today in Reason:
[In a July 3 UNHCR report] Albanese and her staff elide any events during October 2023 that might have precipitated a change in policy by Israel towards Gaza, and they wave away any possible hostility towards Jews.
Albanese herself was the subject of a 2024 report from Geneva-based watchdog group UN Watch that found she is ill-disposed towards Israel and most of its inhabitants. Titled Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing: Why Democracies Should Sanction UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese For Propagating Antisemitism and Supporting Terrorism, that report documented a series of concerning facts about Albanese. These include her accusation that the United States has been “subjugated by the Jewish lobby“; that her husband, who compares Palestinians to Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, formerly worked for the Palestinian Authority; that in her role as a U.N. official, she told attendees at a Hamas-organized conference “you have a right to resist this occupation“; and that she responded to Hamas’s October 7 atrocities by insisting “today’s violence must be put in context.”
Albanese’s reappointment to her position in April was opposed by the United States, Argentina, Hungary, Israel, the Netherlands, and members of the European Parliament from Bulgaria, Czechia, Denmark, France, Germany, Slovakia, and Sweden, among other interested parties. Nevertheless, she was granted another three-year term in her position.
After Albanese’s latest mischief, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio responded, “Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.” He noted that “she has recently escalated this effort by writing threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies across finance, technology, defense, energy, and hospitality, making extreme and unfounded accusations and recommending the [International Criminal Court] pursue investigations and prosecutions of these companies and their executives.”
This is the money graph:Were Albanese a garden-variety bigot and hater of free markets, sanctions would be an excessive reaction to hateful speech. But she’s a U.N. official: Her pronouncements help shape government policy. The sanctions, then, are a matter of conflict between the U.S. government and a hostile state actor.
Her position matters, what she says and writes is far more than just opinion.