Seeking US green card? How your social media activity could hamper your chances

Are you seeking a green card to the United States? Then you might want to be careful about what you post on social media activity. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that oversees legal migration, has proposed to demand social media accounts of people applying for green cards.

The agency says this is to comply with President Donald Trump’s “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” executive order issued on his first day in office on January 20.

Let’s take a closer look.

What has USCIS said?

USCIS has proposed to collect information about social media activity of immigrants trying to enter the US.

It claims this information is “necessary for a rigorous vetting and screening” of all people applying for “immigration-related benefits.”

In the notice published in the Federal Register on Wednesday (March 5), the US agency, which approves visas and other immigration benefits, said that the proposed measure will apply to people applying for green cards, American citizenship, and asylum or refugee status. The relatives of people who have been granted asylum or refugee status will also be affected by the proposed policy.

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USCIS has argued that the social media rule is necessary to comply with Trump ’s executive order on protecting the US from terrorism and national security threats. In its order, the White House directed the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other government agencies to “identify all resources that may be used to ensure that all aliens seeking admission to the United States, or who are already in the United States, are vetted and screened to the maximum degree possible.”

The public has until May 5 to comment on USCIS’ plan. As per the agency’s estimates, the proposed policy is likely to affect over 3.5 million (35 lakh) people.

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A USCIS spokesperson told Newsweek that verifying social media activity would boost fraud detection and whether the applicants pose a threat to public safety or national security.

Why is it being criticised?

USCIS’s social media plan is being condemned by immigrant advocates who have flagged privacy and freedom of speech concerns.

Catalyze/Citizens, a pro-immigration group, told The Verge that the proposed policy would “weaponise digital platforms” against immigrants. “This is not immigration policy—it is authoritarianism and undemocratic surveillance,” Beatriz Lopez, the group’s executive director, said in an email. “Trump is turning online spaces into surveillance traps, where immigrants are forced to watch their every move and censor their speech or risk their futures in this country. Today it’s immigrants, tomorrow it’s US citizens who dissent with Trump and his administration.”

“Are USCIS staff going to be maintained at the same level or will they also experience cutbacks and how will that affect their ability to be adjudicating these applications?” Kathleen Bush-Joseph, policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said to Newsweek.

“Then getting into the specifics of the social media profiles, I’m not certain about how immigration attorneys will be advising their clients about filling out these forms and what kind of information people may or may not be providing in response. What is actually considered social media and how many different platforms there are, there are a lot of unknowns here.”

Bush-Joseph added, “These forms that people are filling out for these various benefit applications are extremely comprehensive and ask a number of detailed questions which often require the assistance of an attorney to fill out and many of those questions are used to determine who is not eligible for a benefit because of derogatory information, so I think to the extent that people are posting things that raise concerns, it’s not clear what the criteria for determining what a concern is.”

There are also concerns that “vetting” of social media accounts would deter people seeking green cards – permanent residency – and US citizenship.

Saira Hussain, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Newsweek: “These are people who could have been residing in the US for 30, 40 years, as a Green Card holder who are seeking citizenship, or people who are residing on other types of visas who are seeking a Green Card. It really creates a massive chilling effect about people who could be vetted for their online speech who have every right to be here in this country and could be chilled from sharing their opinions because they are concerned they are going to be vetted and denied immigration benefits such as naturalisation.”

In 2019, the US State Department implemented a policy requiring all visa applicants to disclose five years’ worth of social media history. This applied to foreigners applying for visas from outside the US.

Unlike the State Department’s policy, USCIS’ plan will be applied to those already in the US seeking permanent residency or citizenship.

But it is too soon to say whether USCIS’ proposed social media policy will be used to reject applications for green cards, citizenship, and refugee status, analyst Bush-Joseph told The Verge.

Speaking to Times of India (TOI), Jonathan Wasden, an immigration attorney, said, “It remains unclear how USCIS will interpret posts, how long they will store data, or what guidelines they will use to flag concerns. There is also a risk that applicants could face denials based on online activity that is taken out of context”.

With inputs from agencies