Immigrants seeking lawful work in the United States and a legal pathway to citizenship will now be subject to screening for “anti-American” behavior, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said Tuesday.
In a policy alert summarizing the updated guidance, USCIS said officers will have discretion to determine whether applicants for benefits, such as a green card, harbor anti-American views or have “endorsed, promoted, supported, or otherwise espoused the views of an anti-American or terrorist organization or group,” including those that “support or promote antisemitic terrorism.”
The agency also said, separately, that it would expand the types of benefits requests subject to social media vetting.
Experts say the new policy risks slowing down benefits processing for applicants and would deter immigrants from speaking out on political or social issues. More broadly, the guidance is reflective of the Trump administration’s efforts to restrict both legal and illegal immigration.
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In a news release, USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said: “America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies. … Immigration benefits – including to live and work in the United States – remain a privilege, not a right.” USCIS did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Tuesday.
In its policy alert, USCIS did not provide specifics about how the new guidance would be applied, but it said espousing such views would be considered “an overwhelmingly negative factor” in an applicant’s request.
The guidance is effective immediately and applies to pending and new application requests, USCIS said.
“This is a new powerful weapon in President Trump’s arsenal against politically disfavored groups,” said David J. Bier, the director of immigration policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington.
The new policy says anti-American ideologies and activities are defined as those listed under the Immigration and Nationality Act, which prohibits those affiliated or associated with a broad range of topics including antisemitism, terrorism and “world communism” from receiving citizenship.
Bier predicted the changes would bog down adjudications, with immigration officials requiring more time and documentation as they vet social media “and then make assessments against these vague criteria.”
It will also deter millions of people from expressing criticism of or opposition to President Donald Trump and his administration, he said.
“When mere ‘affiliation’ or ‘association’ with poorly defined, unpopular political speech is enough to trigger the loss of jobs, family, or any chance to remain in the United States or become a U.S. citizen, the pressure to avoid controversial views will be immense for anyone interacting with the immigration system,” he said.
The USCIS policy update comes amid a host of other changes applied since Trump took office again, including a more subjective standard for how citizenship applicants are assessed on “good moral character.”
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a lawyer and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, described the move as “McCarthyism.” The term “anti-American ideologies or activities” mentioned in the alert has no precedent in immigration law, he said in a post on X, “and its definition is entirely up to the Trump admin.”
Trump has launched a massive domestic deportation operation aimed at deporting up to 1 million immigrants within the first year of his second term, The Washington Post reported. He has also threatened to strip U.S. citizenship from some of those who have been naturalized. And in April, USCIS announced it would screen immigrants’ social media for purported antisemitic activity and use any posts it finds as potential grounds for denying visa and green-card applications.