US to check visa-seekers’ social media for ‘antisemitic’ posts, administration says
Online activity endorsing ‘violent antisemitic ideologies’ or terror groups can be grounds for rejection when applying for green cards, student visas, effective immediately
US immigration authorities said Wednesday they will look at social media accounts and deny visas or residence permits to people who have exhibited “antisemitic activity,” including support for terror groups, online.
The announcement came as the Trump administration is pulling funding from universities and seeking the deportation of non-citizen students in the name of combating antisemitism, in the wake of widespread protests over the Gaza war that have often included open support for terror groups. The policies have drawn accusations of silencing protected speech.
US Homeland Security 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 antisemitic violence and terrorism — think again. You are not welcome here,” department spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
The US Citizenship and Immigration Services “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 determining benefits, the statement said.
Posts defined as antisemitic will include statements of support for “violent antisemitic ideologies,” of which the statement did not provide examples, and antisemitic terrorist organizations,” for which it gave the examples of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
The policy will take effect immediately and apply to student visas and requests for permanent resident “green cards” to stay in the United States.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late last month that he had stripped visas so far for some 300 people and was doing so on a daily basis. Rubio said that non-US citizens do not have the same rights as Americans and that it was at his discretion, not that of judges, to issue or deny visas.
A number of people stripped of visas contend that they never voiced antipathy for Jews, with some saying that they were targeted because they found themselves in the same place as protests.
The most high-profile deportation case is Mahmoud Khalil, a student leader in anti-Israel protests at Columbia University. Khalil, a US permanent resident, was taken to Louisiana ahead of deportation proceedings.
The Trump administration has also stripped millions of dollars worth of federal funding to leading universities, with officials saying they did not respond properly to combat antisemitism during protests that erupted in response to the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas terror group in Gaza.
The war started on October 7, 2023, when some 5,000 Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, 24 of whom and 34 of whose bodies are still held there.
Protests at universities and elsewhere have seen frequent expressions of support for Hamas and the onslaught, and leading anti-Israel groups on campuses have declined to call for the unconditional release of the hostages.
The Times of Israel Community.