New Zealand is the latest country to ban US influencer Candace Owens

Conservative US political influencer Candace Owens has been refused a visa to enter New Zealand.

Owens was scheduled to give a speech but was barred because she had been barred from entering another country, immigration officials said Thursday.

News of the ruling came weeks after neighboring Australia also rejected her visa application, citing comments denying Nazi medical experiments on Jews in concentration camps during World War II.

“From trivializing the impact of the Holocaust with comments about (Nazi doctor Josef) Mengele to claims that Muslims started slavery, Candace Owens has the ability to stir up discord in almost any direction,” Immigration Minister Tony Burke said at the time to Australian media.

“Australia’s national interests are best served with Candace Owens elsewhere.”

“Tickets for these events are $100,” he added The Sydney Morning Herald. “I hope she has a good refund policy.”

Local leaders began pushing for Australia to deny his visa this summer after Owens described stories of Nazi medical experiments as “propaganda.”

Owens is scheduled to speak at a series of events in several Australian cities and Auckland, New Zealand, in February and March next year. Tickets remain on sale and there is no indication on the organizer’s website that she has been refused entry into either country.

The commentator, who has more than three million followers on YouTube, is accused by her critics of promoting conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism and has sparked firestorms with her comments against Black Lives Matter, feminism, vaccines and immigration.

In March, Owens said she had parted ways with the Daily Wire, where she had hosted an online talk show since 2021, after clashes with the founders over their comments about Jews and their opposition to U.S. military support for Israel. She was widely criticized for making comments trivializing the Holocaust in a YouTube video in July.

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Owens had promised Australian and New Zealand audiences a discussion about free expression and her Christian faith when she announced the speaking tour in August.

But Australian officials expelled her from the country in October, with Immigration Minister Tony Burke telling reporters that Owens had “the ability to stir up discord in almost every direction,” citing her comments about the Holocaust and Muslims.

“Australia’s national interests are best served with Candace Owens elsewhere,” Burke said. Australian Jewish groups had called on officials to ban them from the country.

New Zealand officials did not address Owens’ political views in a statement on Thursday.

She was denied a permit to work as an entertainer in New Zealand on the grounds that visas cannot legally be issued to those excluded from another country, said Jock Gilray, an immigration spokesman.