by CUPA-HR | April 9, 2025
On April 9, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced that it will begin considering “aliens’ antisemitic activity on social media and the physical harassment of Jewish individuals as grounds for denying immigration benefit requests.” According to the announcement, the guidance is effective immediately and impacts individuals applying for lawful permanent resident status, foreign students, and “aliens affiliated with educational institutions” linked to antisemitic activity.
Under the new guidance, USCIS will look at social media content that indicates a requestor “endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity as a negative factor in any USCIS discretionary analysis when adjudicating immigration benefit requests.” The announcement states that DHS and USCIS aim to enforce all relevant immigration laws to the maximum degree, consistent with President Trump’s executive orders on combatting antisemitism and national security controls to protect against foreign terrorists.
In early March, USCIS published a proposal to collect social media information on applications for immigration-related benefits. USCIS claimed that such collection of information was necessary to comply with Trump’s national security executive order discussed above. The comment period for this information collection proposal is still open. The comment period closes May 5.
CUPA-HR continues to monitor for updates on immigration policy changes that could potentially impact student and nonimmigrant work visas used by the higher education community.
