Updated April 09, 2025 at 16:39 PM ET
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced it will begin screening immigrants' social media for evidence of antisemitic activity as grounds for denying immigration benefit requests. The screenings will affect people applying for permanent residence status as well as foreigners affiliated with educational institutions. The policy will go into effect immediately.
In a statement issued Wednesday morning, the Department of Homeland Security said it will "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 [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 announcement comes following the highly publicized arrests and detentions of pro-Palestinian student activists such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, who the government alleges engaged in antisemitic activities. Their lawyers deny the allegations.
In a statement to NPR, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, the national deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said: "The spirit of Joseph McCarthy is alive and well in the Trump administration, which has spent months dishonestly mischaracterizing legitimate criticism of the Israeli government's war crimes in Gaza as antisemitic, pursuing witch hunts into American colleges, and threatening the free speech rights of immigrants."
J-Street, a Washington group which describes itself as pro-Israel, pro-peace and pro-democracy, was quick to disavow the new policy.
"The fight against antisemitism won't be advanced by attacks on 250-year-old cherished American rights like free speech," said the group's president Jeremy Ben-Ami.
"The Trump administration's own appointees have social media accounts riddled with antisemitism, demonstrating how insincere they are in claiming their totalitarian attacks on higher education and immigrants will make Jewish Americans safer and that they are motivated by genuine concern for our wellbeing."
The administration has doubled down on its enforcement in educational spaces in recent weeks.
"It is a privilege to be granted a visa to live & study in the United States of America," Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on X last month. "When you advocate for violence and terrorism that privilege should be revoked and you should not be in this country."
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