Administration Says DHS Can Demand Social Media Info From Legal Immigrants And US Citizens

Well, we always knew it would come to this.

In a blow to the First Amendment and privacy, the Trump administration last week approved a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) plan to collect social media handles from people applying to change their immigration status. The new requirement, which was approved for one year, comes after the administration has openly declared its intent to use social media handles to screen people for speech it dislikes.

That’s from the Brennan Center report published earlier this month. What was once limited to people seeking visas, asylum, or work permits is now being foisted on people who have been here legally for years, including US citizens.

Anyone could have seen this coming. The DHS has gradually expanded its biometric program from targeting foreign arrivals at US airports to pretty much everyone who utilizes an international airport, even while traveling entirely domestically. The end goal is biometric scanners in every US airport for no real reason other than the DHS wants to do this.

This sure as shit doesn’t sound like America:

The more than 3 million people applying each year for immigration status changes — such as seeking work or travel authorization, a green card, or citizenship — will now be required to give the government their social media handles. In some cases, they must also provide the handles of their young children, spouses, and parents, many of whom are U.S. citizens, green card holders, or are otherwise in the United States legally. The new rules will require them to submit any social media handles they have used over the past five years, whether used in a personal or professional capacity or even on behalf of an organization. This covers platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube as well as messaging services such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and GroupMe.

The underlying message is clear: if you want to live in America, you have to play by the rules the administration sets down. To be part of Trump’s version of the United States, you are expected to constantly run towards goalposts that keep moving deeper into the surveillance state. It’s all very reminiscent of every authoritarian regime that knew the only way to stay in power was to keep increasing the size of the jackboot.

This would be terrible enough in isolation. But this comes on top of the DHS sending subpoenas to tech companies in hopes of unmasking social media account owners who have done nothing more than engage in protected speech. And that’s on top of multiple moves made by the DHS and other federal agencies to nudge people towards engaging in self-censorship or “self-deportation.”

And, just in case you might think the government is too clumsy and inefficient to turn this into the oppression it clearly desires it to be, may I remind you that ICE, CBP, and the DHS itself have access (or are seeking to acquire) multiple forms of always-on social media surveillance tools to keep tabs on what this administration considers to be “anti-American” sentiment. That it’s actually “anti-this-fucking-administration” sentiment makes no difference to the Administrator in Chief, who not only thinks he’s a king, but expects everyone from cabinet members to taxpayers to treat him as one.

If there’s any silver lining here, it’s that this sort of thing doesn’t really work. As the Brennan Center report points out, the administration should already know this. Trump was briefed back in 2016 that social media “vetting” rarely returned anything of value in terms of national security. These findings were reiterated in a report delivered by government officials in 2021, who stated social media disclosure “added no value” to existing vetting efforts.

But things have changed. Trump, in particular, doesn’t actually care whether or not it adds any national security value. He only cares that it might help him hunt down his critics and/or encourage them to speak up less loudly and/or frequently.

In reviving the proposal this year, USCIS said that gathering social media handles is necessary to comply with the administration’s new policy of screening people in the United States for “hostile attitudes” or “hateful ideology” toward Americans or U.S. culture and institutions. 

Oh, if only irony meant anything. The people with the most “hostile attitude” towards Americans and American culture and institutions are the MAGA fiends running the nation. This is nothing more than a particularly right-wing take on “better red than dead.” With any luck, this version of the GOP will get kicked to the curb forever, replaced by better people who will never abuse the expansive powers the departing despots leave behind.