The United States has started screening social media activity of immigrants and visa applicants, saying anti-Semitic content and physical harassment of Jewish individuals would be a factor in determining immigrant benefits.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service announced on Wednesday that it was immediately enforcing the measure to consider “aliens’ antisemitic activity on social media and the physical harassment of Jewish individuals as grounds for denying immigration benefit requests.”
The move right away affects immigrants applying for lawful permanent resident status, foreign students and aliens affiliated with educational institutions linked to antisemitic activity.
“USCIS will consider social media content that indicates an alien endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity as a negative factor in any USCIS discretionary analysis when adjudicating immigration benefit requests. “
The decision comes amid cancelation of visas of several foreign students who took part in protests on U.S. campuses to decry Israeli military operations in Gaza.
The Administration has taken action against two pro-Palestinian student activists including Mahmoud Khalil, a pemanent resident, and Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student who was researching on an FI visa.
The Trump Administration says they engaged in antisemitic activities. However, their lawyers refute allegations levelled against them. The free speech defenders and human rights activists have criticized the actions as contrary to the spirit of the U.S. constitution.
Secretary Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security considers the step consistent with President Donald Trump’s executive orders on Combatting Anti-Semitism, Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism and Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.
The USCIC announcement said, “DHS will enforce all relevant immigration laws to the maximum degree, to protect the homeland from extremists and terrorist aliens, including those who support antisemitic terrorism, violent antisemitic ideologies and antisemitic terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or Ansar Allah aka: “the Houthis.”
“There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” said DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin.
The statement adds that 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.”
Reacting to the decision, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group for the rights of Muslims, criticized it, saying the announcement does not define “antisemitic activity,” and accused the U.S. government of “mischaracterizing legitimate criticism of the Israeli government’s war crimes in Gaza as antisemitic.”
