Donald Trump’s administration wants to review the social media accounts of immigrants seeking long-term residency in the United States, potentially allowing the White House to bar critics from making the country their home.
The administration recently announced that it’s seeking public comment on its plan to obtain social media handles from immigrants seeking approval for extended stays, writing that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had “identified the need to collect social media identifiers (‘handles’) and associated social media platform names from applicants to enable and help inform identity verification, national security and public safety screening, and vetting, and related inspections.”
Residents of other countries already have to provide social media handles when applying for travel visas in the U.S. This new proposal would expand that policy to people who apply for naturalization, permanent residency or asylum, and it comes as the administration seems intent on using the immigration system as an illiberal weapon to crack down on speech it doesn’t like.
Residents of other countries already have to provide social media handles when applying for travel visas in the U.S.
The administration is currently carrying out deportation processes against Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University graduate student and legal U.S. permanent resident who participated in pro-Palestinian protests last year amid Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The Department of Homeland Security has said he “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” but Khalil has not been charged with a crime or been convicted of any terror-related activity.
The administration also is trying to deport Badar Khan Suri, an academic from India working at Georgetown University, over allegations that he has ties to Hamas and has shared its propaganda online. As of this writing, a judge has temporarily thwarted the administration’s attempts to deport Suri. And France’s government alleged last week that a French scientist had been barred from entering the U.S. over messages found on his phone with his personal opinion about the Trump administration’s policies on academic research. A DHS official responded to the claim on social media, alleging — without providing evidence — that the scientist had been kept from entering because he had taken confidential information from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
It’s certainly a heavy claim to lob without providing a hint of evidence to back it up. And it goes to show why many people are rightly concerned about expanding the administration’s ability to peruse through the social media accounts of immigrants already living here.
The public comment period for this proposal ends on May 5. If you are someone with thoughts on this attempt by the Trump administration to expand its powers, now is the time to make your voice heard.
