This story was originally published on Truthout on Aug. 20, 2025. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
New guidance from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) may make pro-Palestine activism a disqualifying factor for non-citizens who seek to live and work in the United States.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced on Tuesday that, effective immediately, when reviewing applications, the agency will consider “any involvement in anti-American or terrorist organizations, as well as the use of discretion in adjudication of certain benefit requests where evidence of antisemitic activity is present.” The applicant “bears the burden of proof to demonstrate that a favorable exercise of discretion is warranted,” the announcement states.
The USCIS defines benefits as those seeking immigrant status, non-immigrant status, refugee status, temporary protected status, employment authorization, and citizenship.
For months after Israel began its genocide in Gaza in October 2023, the Biden administration repeatedly lobbed baseless accusations of antisemitism and support for terrorism at pro-Palestine, anti-genocide activists. Soon after taking office, the Trump administration escalated attacks on these activists by abducting and imprisoning many of them, particularly those who were foreign-born. The new guidance appears to formalize and significantly expand the crackdown on the movement, potentially barring those who criticize Israel from living in the United States by equating such criticism with antisemitism.
“The ability to speak one’s mind is a core constitutional right and an indispensable American value,” Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said in a statement to Truthout.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration abducted and attempted to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a green card holder, based on his pro-Palestine activism at Columbia University. He was jailed in Louisiana, hundreds of miles away from his home in New York City, for more than three months. During that time, his wife gave birth to their first son. Immigration officials denied his request to attend the birth.
Government officials falsely accused Khalil of antisemitism to justify deporting him. In a letter to the immigration court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote that Khalil’s “public actions and continued presence in the United States” undermine “U.S. policy to combat anti-Semitism around the world and in the United States, in addition to efforts to protect Jewish students from harassment and violence in the United States.” The letter was first published by The Associated Press.
In another case, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers abducted Tufts University doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk for co-authoring an opinion piece for the student paper that called on the university to break ties with Israel. The Department of Homeland Security falsely claimed that she had “engaged in activities supportive of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”
The agency also announced that it had “expanded the types of benefit requests that receive social media vetting, and reviews for anti-American activity will be added to that vetting. Anti-American activity will be an overwhelmingly negative factor in any discretionary analysis.”
“Anti-American” ideologies and activities have previously been detailed in a 1952 statute which prohibits the naturalization of any person who favors “totalitarian” forms of government, is a member of the Communist party, or advocates for the violent overthrow of the United States government. The law was adopted at the height of the government’s crusade against communists, known as the Red Scare.
“America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser said of the new policy guidelines. “U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is committed to implementing policies and procedures that root out anti-Americanism and supporting the enforcement of rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible.”
Denying immigrants benefits based on their speech is “a violation of the First Amendment,” Eidelman said in response to the guidelines.
This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg.