The U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently issued new guidelines regarding an immigration officer’s ability to deport or deny entry to immigrants if they are determined to have committed “anti-American” speech or are involved with an organization which promotes anti-American ideology. The agency is in charge of processing immigration, asylum, and refugee applications, issuing (or denying) visas and citizenship status. Since July, the agency has been led by Joseph Edlow, a lawyer who previously worked on crafting conservative immigration policy at the Heritage Foundation and the ominously-named Center for Renewing America, which was founded by right-wing Christian nationalist Russel Vought.
The guidelines allow immigration officers to review social media posts, published writings, and public statements in order to determine if the individual in question meets the Good Moral Character (GMC) standard. Previously, the GMC considered mainly criminal convictions, and a clean legal record was all that was needed to meet that standard. Now, however, officers will be required to consider immigrants’ political views and associations. Among these are any association with any socialist or communist organization, or any organization which promotes “totalitarianism.” Also emphasized in a separate news release is an officer’s authority to consider “antisemetic activity” in deciding whether or not someone is deported or allowed entry into the country. This gives officers broad authority to deport or deny entry to immigrants based on what the officer perceives to be socialist advocacy or antisemitism – and leaves it entirely to the discretion of the Trump administration to define what qualifies as such.
This administration has again and again tied criticisms of Israel with antisemitism, and for decades Republicans have called any advocacy for improving social safety nets akin to advocating for world communism. This is another brick in the path towards criminalizing socialism or criticism of Israel’s actions. Remember, the justification for imprisoning student activists Rumeysa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil, among others, was that they had written articles critical of Israel’s genocidal campaign or engaged in campus advocacy for an end to the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. The Trump administration knows they can get away with targeting immigrants now, especially since the Democrats have largely refused to engage critically on the administration’s mass deportation efforts. We must recognize, however, that this is just the foundation for what will be turned on everyone in this country, natural born citizen or otherwise. We cannot afford to wait for Trump’s next step in silencing advocates for a better world. We must step up and defend immigrants’ rights, before we find everyone’s rights on the chopping block.
