United States | USCIS will consider certain social media activity when adjudicating immigration benefit requests

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that, effective immediately, it will “begin considering aliens’ antisemitic activity on social media and the physical harassment of Jewish individuals as grounds for denying immigration benefit requests.”

Key Points:

• The policy immediately affects noncitizens applying for lawful permanent resident status, foreign students and those noncitizens “affiliated with educational institutions linked to antisemitic activity.”
• USCIS stated it is acting under guidance from the Department of Homeland Security in accord with three of President Trump’s executive orders: Combating Anti-Semitism, Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism and Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.
• According to the announcement, social media content that will be considered a negative factor in any USCIS discretionary analysis when adjudicating immigration benefit requests includes content that indicates a foreign national “endorsing, espousing, promoting or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity.”

Additional Information: A USCIS proposal to collect social media identifiers on certain immigration forms is currently in a 60-day public comment period.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice Group.

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