Mr Ahmed, a former Labour Party aide, has now been placed at the “top of the list” of people being considered for visa restrictions, The Telegraph understands.
The state and justice departments along with the White House are understood to be weighing the decision to restrict Mr Ahmed’s visa.
A source with knowledge of the discussions said: “They want to send a message that they’re not having it. They’re not happy. They are very actively considering visa restrictions on him.”
The move is the latest example of Mr Trump’s willingness to clamp down on British nationals complicit in censoring American citizens.
Earlier this year, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, warned that foreign nationals face being banned from the United States if they are found to have breached the free speech rights of American citizens.
Campaign against ‘disinformation’
The CCDH, which has charitable status in the US, claims to “disrupt the spread of digital hate and misinformation”, with branches in both the UK and the US.
Mr Ahmed, who works in the Washington office, but is understood to run the entire transnational operation, has found himself in the crosshairs of some of the president’s closest allies, including Robert F Kennedy Jr and Elon Musk.
In 2021, the group named Mr Kennedy, the current Health Secretary, as one of its “Disinformation Dozen”, a list of 12 people it claimed should have their accounts removed from social media for posting anti‑vaccine content.
Leaked documents, thought to have been drawn up by the CCDH, also reportedly listed “kill Musk’s Twitter” as one of the group’s annual priorities last year.
The non-profit published a series of highly critical reports linking Mr Musk’s takeover of the platform, now known as X, to rising misinformation and hate speech that was “spreading like wildfire”.
Mr Musk, the US president’s former efficiency tsar, later sued the company, but the claim was thrown out by a judge.
The tech billionaire subsequently claimed the CCDH was violating laws against foreign interference in US elections.
“Due to visa record confidentiality, we have no comment on department actions with respect to specific visa cases,” a state department spokesman told The Telegraph.
“We refer you to DHS for questions regarding travel to the United States under the visa waiver programme.”
White House takes aim
The move is part of an American campaign to “step up pressure” on Britain’s Online Safety Act. The law, which regulates online speech, allows the UK Government to levy massive fines on US companies such as Apple, Truth Social, and X if it finds that rules on hate speech have been broken.
Those in the president’s inner circle see the potential penalties as an unwarranted foreign intervention into American free speech.
Since the law came into effect this year, Ofcom, the UK’s online regulator, has written to several US firms ordering them to conform to the act.
It has sparked outrage from Congressmen and legal experts in the US, who say the overreach is a threat by the UK to silence America’s companies and citizens if they refuse to comply with the British Government’s view of what is acceptable to post online.
“The one thing everyone [in the Trump administration] agrees on is the need to dramatically pressure the UK over the Online Safety Act,” the source said.
The decision to revoke Mr Ahemd’s visa would not be without precedent.
British self-proclaimed journalist Sami Hamdi is facing deportation from the US in the wake of being arrested and having his visa revoked, after allegedly praising the Oct 7 massacre.
British rap duo Bob Vylan were also banned from the States after the group’s frontman called for the death of all Israeli soldiers during a performance a this year’s Glastonbury festival.
In May, The Telegraph revealed how the president sent US officials to meet British pro-life activists over concerns their right to protest was being stifled.
The diplomats, from the bureau of democracy, human rights and labor (DRL) travelled to London in March in an effort to “affirm the importance of freedom of expression in the UK and across Europe”.
Led by Samuel Samson, a senior adviser in the state department, they met with officials from the Foreign Office and challenged Ofcom over the Online Safety Act.
Since then, the Trump administration has also raised questions about the conviction and sentencing of several high-profile cases, including that of Lucy Connolly.
Ms Connolly was jailed over a social media post she made expressing her outrage hours after Axel Rudakubana murdered three girls at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club in Southport.
Imran Ahmed was contacted for comment.
