Politics
U.S. immigration officials look to expand social media data collection
U.S. immigration officials are asking the public and federal agencies to comment on a proposal to collect social media handles from people applying for benefits such as green cards or citizenship, to comply with an executive order from President Donald Trump.
The March 5 notice raised alarms from immigration and free speech advocates because it appears to expand the government’s reach in social media surveillance to people already vetted and in the U.S. legally, such as asylum seekers, green card and citizenship applicants — and not just those applying to enter the country. That said, social media monitoring by immigration officials has been a practice for over a decade, since at least the second Obama administration and ramping up under Trump’s first term.
Below are some questions and answers on what the new proposal means and how it might expand social media surveillance.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a 60-day notice asking for public commentary on its plan to comply with Trump’s executive order titled “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats.” The plan calls for “uniform vetting standards” and screening people for grounds of inadmissibility to the U.S., as well as identify verification and “national security screening.” It seeks to collect social media handles and the names of platforms, although not passwords.
The policy seeks to require people to share their social media handles when applying for U.S. citizenship, green card, asylum and other immigration benefits. The proposal is open to feedback from the public until May 5.
“The basic requirements that are in place right now is that people who are applying for immigrant and non-immigrant visas have to provide their social media handles,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, managing director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program at New York University. “Where I could see this impacting is someone who came into the country before visa-related social media handle collection started, so they wouldn’t have provided it before and now they’re being required to. Or maybe they did before, but their social media use has changed.”
“This fairly widely expanded policy to collect them for everyone applying for any kind of immigration benefit, including people who have already been vetted quite extensively,” she added.
What this points to — along with other signals the administration is sending such as detaining people and revoking student visas for participating in campus protests that the government deems antisemitic and sympathetic to the militant Palestinian group Hamas — Levinson-Waldman added, is the increased use of social media to “make these very high-stakes determinations about people.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service said the agency seeks to “strengthen fraud detection, prevent identity theft, and support the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible.”
“These efforts ensure that those seeking immigration benefits to live and work in the United States do not threaten public safety, undermine national security, or promote harmful anti-American ideologies,” the statement continued. USCIS estimates that the proposed policy change will affect about 3.6 million people.
The U.S. government began ramping up the use of social media for immigration vetting in 2014 under then-President Barack Obama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. In late 2015, the Department of Homeland Security began both “manual and automatic screening of the social media accounts of a limited number of individuals applying to travel to the United States, through various non-public pilot programs,” the nonpartisan law and policy institute explains on its website.
In May 2017, the U.S. Department of State issued an emergency notice to increase the screening of visa applicants. Brennan, along with other civil and human rights groups, opposed the move, arguing that it is “excessively burdensome and vague, is apt to chill speech, is discriminatory against Muslims, and has no security benefit.”
Two years later, the State Department began collecting social media handles from “nearly all foreigners” applying for visas to travel to the U.S. — about 15 million people a year.
Artificial intelligence tools used to comb through potentially millions of social media accounts have evolved over the past decade, although experts caution that such tools have limits and can make mistakes.
Leon Rodriguez, who served as the director of USCIS from 2014 to 2017 and now practices as an immigration attorney, said while AI could be used as a first screening tool, he doesn’t think “we’re anywhere close to where AI will be able to exercise the judgment of a trained fraud detection and national security officer” or that of someone in an intelligence agency.
“It’s also possible that I will miss stuff,” he added. “Because AI is still very much driven by specific search criteria and it’s possible that the search criteria won’t hit actionable content.”
“Social media is just a stew, so much different information — some of it is reliable, some of it isn’t. Some of it can be clearly attributed to somebody, some of it can’t. And it can be very hard to interpret,” Levinson-Waldman said. “So I think as a baseline matter, just using social media to make high-stakes decisions is quite concerning.”
Then there’s the First Amendment.
“It’s by and large established that people in the U.S. have First Amendment rights,” she said. This includes people who are not citizens. “And obviously, there are complicated ways that that plays out. There is also fairly broad authority for the government to do something like revoking somebody’s visa, if you’re not a citizen, then there’s steps that the government can take — but by and large, with very narrow exceptions, that cannot be on the grounds of speech that would be protected (by the First Amendment).”
Florida’s tradition of pro-Israel legislation is on track to continue in 2025, as Senate and House measures punishing so-called academic boycotts are moving through committees.
An anti-boycott, divest, sanction (BDS) measure (SB 1678) that would defend Israel against its opponents in schools and non-governmental agencies advanced through the Senate Appropriations Committee with unanimous support. The companion measure (HB 1519) cleared the House State Affairs Committee by a 23-2 vote.
Sen. Tom Leek, the Senate sponsor, said the bill was necessary to stop “attempts to weaken the state’s ability to conduct trade and exchange with Israel” and to “close the loop on prior good work” by the Legislature in combating anti-Israel sentiment that “often amounts to ethnic and religious discrimination.”
Rep. Hillary Cassel, the House sponsor, extolled the “mutually beneficial relationship” and “economic partnership between Florida and Israel” by contextualizing previous anti-BDS laws and making the case for the proposal, which she said would ensure that “this is where antisemitism goes to die in Florida.”
The measures propose that anti-Israeli actions undertaken by “an educational institution, a nonprofit organization, an agency, a local governmental entity or unit thereof, or a foreign government” amount to an “academic boycott.”
They also would mandate cessation of state contracts and grants with those entities on the wrong side of the ideological conflict if they don’t change their ways.
These entities would have 90 days to correct their noncompliance and be removed from what would be called the Scrutinized Companies or Other Entities that Boycott Israel List under this proposal. Otherwise, the state would divest itself of contracts with them.
If the bill is passed, public funds, such as the State Board of Administration or State University System, cannot invest in these companies. Additionally, it requires that arts and culture grants not go to support antisemitic work.
The bill would also target agreements, like foreign exchange programs, with foreign universities deemed to be supporting antisemitism.
In the Senate panel, Leek was asked about “guardrails” protecting free speech, and cited court precedent establishing the right to pass anti-BDS laws.
The House discussion was more lively, with Cassel asked about whether an individual doing a “Nazi salute” would represent a violation of the law, whether “commercial speech” was protected speech, and whether “unscripted” remarks in art installations could merit a grace period for “correction.”
Democratic Rep. Debra Tendrich argued that the slippery slope from criticism of Israel to overt antisemitism in today’s culture make this legislation “extremely needed.”
“It now turns to beyond just being Israeli but being Jewish,” the legislator from Palm Beach said. “Many of you have heard this story where I’ve been out of gas station, someone’s seen my Jewish star and wished I crashed and died and called me a Jewish murderer.”
Four words. That’s all it takes to unravel a parent’s world: “Your child is sick.”
The diagnosis is rare, the prognosis grim. He’s only six, but there’s hope: a new kind of treatment that can be customized to his DNA — a marvel of modern medicine promised for decades that is now a reality.
The potential cure has a gatekeeper, though. While the clock continues to tick, the government won’t allow your child to try this last chance at saving his life.
More than 2 million Floridians suffer from rare diseases, and for thousands of them, outdated federal regulations and the entanglement of bureaucracy continue to block cutting-edge treatments that could mean the difference between life and death. But now, lawmakers in Florida have an opportunity to place life-and-death decisions back in the hands of patients and their doctors, where they belong.
Florida leaders can enact a new law, the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments, that allows Floridians with rare diseases to access innovative, highly personalized treatments without first begging the federal government for permission.
The problem isn’t hypothetical. It’s tragically real.
Take Elijah Stacy, for example. At just 6 years old, doctors gave Elijah a crushing diagnosis. He had Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a rare, incurable, and fatal genetic disease that slowly erodes muscle strength and robs young people of their independence. As they reach adolescence, DMD patients start losing strength in their arms. Eventually, their heart and diaphragm weaken, too. Death typically comes by the mid-twenties.
Waiting on the government to go through reviews and testing, granting approvals, and making recommendations isn’t a luxury someone like Elijah can afford.
When Elijah was only 11, the disease had already taken away his ability to walk. Now, at 23, he’s struggling to use his arms. But that hasn’t stopped him and he’s not saying goodbye. Elijah has led the fight for his life — and the lives of thousands of others — by advocating for the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments.
The reform, which is now law in nine states and currently under consideration in the Florida Legislature with HB 1333/SB 680, defies a federal system that prizes red tape over relief, rules over recovery, and leaves dying patients trapped as they wait for the end to come. It recognizes that those facing debilitating, rare diseases need action now and allows patients to access cutting-edge therapies tailored to their genetic profiles, even if the Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve.
“Right now, I can be willing to try a new treatment, the manufacturer of the treatment can be willing to allow me to try it, and a doctor can be willing to administer it — yet Uncle Sam is not willing and stops me from receiving a lifesaving treatment,” Elijah said. “This is completely backwards. After all, doctors know their patients better than a far-off bureaucrat who doesn’t even know the patient exists. Why should I have to beg the federal government for permission to try to save my own life?”
Elijah’s story is far from unique. Tens of millions of Americans, including thousands in Florida, live with rare diseases and want to try anything they can. Although new technology has ushered in an age of personalized care customized to a patient’s unique DNA, regulations have not kept pace, leaving many stranded. Too often, those suffering from degenerative or rare diseases have to wait years for a therapy that could help them today.
By enacting the Right to Try for Individualized Treatments, Florida lawmakers can advocate for some of the state’s most vulnerable, empowering them to fight to save their own lives despite distant regulators standing between them, their doctors, and a treatment.
“The reality for me is that I’m going to die, likely before I reach middle-age,” Elijah explains. “The average lifespan for people with Duchenne is 25. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”
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Brian Norman is the director of State Affairs at the Goldwater Institute, where he assists in developing and implementing Goldwater’s national legislative affairs strategy.
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