Foreigners seeking permanent residency status in the United States and foreign students with antisemitism or terrorism support on their social media accounts may be denied benefits requests, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced in a Wednesday statement.
USCIS said that it would consider social media content that indicates that "foreign citizens endorse, promote, or support antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity" as a negative factor when adjudicating benefit requests.
The terrorists groups considered under scrutiny include Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Ansar Allah.
“There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” DHS Public Affairs Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the statement. “Secretary Kristi Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for antisemitic violence and terrorism – think again. You are not welcome here.”
USCIS said that the new guidance, to be implemented immediately, was consistent with President Donald Trump's executive orders against antisemitism.
Crackdown on radicalism at American universities
The statement, which noted that it would impact foreign students and others "affiliated with educational institutions linked to antisemitic activity," comes amid a crackdown on radicalism at American universities. The administration has threatened the grants and contracts of institutions it suspected of violating the civil rights of Jewish students and promoting radicalism, and sought to deport foreign nationals such as Columbia University Apartheid Divest leading member Mahmoud Khalil.
Over the weekend dozens of students had their visas cancelled at institutions such as Columbia University, Harvard University, Stanford University, and University of California schools, but for the most part the administration did not inform the academic institutions of the reasons for the terminations.
University of Washington announced Monday that five current students and four recent graduates in post-graduation training, but noted that they had "no indication these actions are due to activism or other protected free speech."
Reuters reported Wednesday that the administration had frozen over $1 billion in funding for Cornell University and $790 million for Northwestern University while investigating alluded civil rights violations.
Both institutions were aware of the reports but had not received official notification about the funding suspension.
Cornell administration said in a Tuesday statement that while it had not been informed of the freeze, it could confirm that it had received more than 75 stop work orders from the Department of Defense related to research.
The work was on "new materials for jet engines, propulsion systems, large-scale information networks, robotics, superconductors, and space and satellite communications, as well as cancer research" was of "significance for our national defense, the competitiveness of our economy, and the health of our citizens," warned the Cornell administration.
While it had called for academic institutions to take action against campus antisemitism, the American Jewish Committee cautioned in a Tuesday statement against "broad, sweeping, and devastating cuts in federal funding" against American universities.
"Funding cuts or freezes are essential tools of last resort when addressing discrimination in federally funded programs," said AJC. "All efforts to remedy problems in educational institutions – including those to rectify antisemitism – must be plainly understood, publicly transparent, and specifically targeted to address the problem, and must not curtail the autonomy and academic freedom of higher education institutions that allow them to pursue their essential work. Overly broad, arbitrary cuts pose a profound threat to the survival of America’s leading universities."
