The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced Wednesday it would begin screening immigrants’ social media activity for “antisemitism,” formalizing a process it has already used to deport hundreds of international students.
The Department of Homeland Security, which houses Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), said in a press release that those applying for permanent resident status, international students and non-citizens affiliated with schools “linked to antisemitic activity” would be affected immediately. It would also consider “physical harassment of Jewish individuals.”
“[Secretary Kristi] Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-Semitic violence and terrorism – think again. You are not welcome here,” Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary for public affairs, said in a media release.
First Amendment groups immediately hit back against the announcement.
“By surveilling visa and green card holders and targeting them based on nothing more than their protected expression, the administration trades America’s commitment to free and open discourse for fear and silence,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a college free speech organization, posted on social media. “Unfortunately, that chill appears to be the administration’s aim.”
“When the federal government starts talking about people ‘hiding behind the First Amendment,’ look out,” FIRE attorney Will Creeley added on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced last month the State Department had revoked over 300 student visas from international students, many of whom engaged in pro-Palestine demonstrations that have swept college campuses.
President Donald Trump’s administration has taken a hard line against universities where students have protested Israel in the nearly 18 months since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack in which some 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals were killed and more than 250 people kidnapped. The incident which kicked off a war between Israel and the extremist organization. Since then, nearly 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the United Nations, mostly women, children and elderly people.
Trump and other Republicans have painted the largely peaceful protests — and support of Palestine in general — as antisemitic. His administration has threatened 60 universities, including Tulane in New Orleans, with the revocation of federal funding if they fail “to protect Jewish students on campus.”
Several schools, including Cornell, Princeton and Columbia, have had millions in federal funding paused or revoked in an attempt to influence their campus policy.
Many of the students arrested had no criminal records, with their attorneys alleging they had been arrested for engaging in peaceful protests. In one case involving a Tufts University student who Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents swarmed and arrested, supporters say her alleged offense was authoring an opinion piece for a student newspaper in favor of Palestinians.
USCIS will consider social media content that indicates the user “endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity” in its analysis when considering immigration requests.
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