Trump is demanding social media handles for citizenship, green card, and visa applicants whether they're already in the U.S. or not.

President Donald Trump’s administration wants to force people in the U.S. applying for green cards or citizenship to fork over their social media handles, in a move with far-reaching implications as the government cracks down on pro-Palestine activists.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, which oversees naturalization and immigration, earlier this month proposed requesting social media names from people in the U.S. who apply for asylum, permanent residency, or naturalization, expanding a policy that used to only target people living abroad applying for visas.

The proposal references Trump’s day-one executive order laying the groundwork for a new Muslim travel ban, which also asked federal agencies to identify immigrants in the U.S. who hold “hostile attitudes” toward the government.

The shift would affect an estimated 3.5 million people per year — some of whom have lived in the U.S. for decades.

In light of Columbia University protester Mahmoud Khalil’s ongoing detention, one official from a Muslim civil rights group said the new policy poses special danger for critics of Israel and the Trump administration.

“This policy would disparately impact Muslim and Arab applicants seeking U.S. citizenship that have voiced support for Palestinian human rights,” said Robert McCaw, director of government affairs at the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Collecting the social media identifiers of any potential green card applicants or citizens is the means to silencing their lawful speech.”

Hoovering Handles

Collecting social media information, according to the USCIS proposal first posted March 5, is necessary “for the enhanced identity verification, vetting and national security screening.”

The proposal specifically cites Trump’s January 20 executive order, which advocates have warned goes well beyond the Muslim travel ban from Trump’s first term, which targeted people living abroad.

The new executive order stated that “the United States must ensure that admitted aliens and aliens otherwise already present in the United States do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”

USCIS said the social media handles it collects would be used to determine if people applying for a variety of immigration statuses pose a “security or public-safety threat.”

Chilling Effects

The policy proposal does not sketch out limits on how USCIS can use its newly acquired data, according to Saira Hussain, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Hussain said she was particularly concerned that the government might use artificial intelligence or other automated tools to punish speech it dislikes, pointing to a news report that the State Department is using AI to revoke the visas of people who allegedly express “pro-Hamas” sentiments.

Hussain said she feared a chilling effect, where people applying for a change in status refrain from speaking about potentially controversial issues.

“Anybody who is within the bounds of the United States has First Amendment rights,” she said. “The Constitution applies whether you are somebody who is a citizen or somebody who is a green card holder who is here in the United States. I think that this administration is trying to chip away at that notion, but that is very much what First Amendment jurisprudence has been under the courts.”

CAIR’s McCaw said he worried that the policy could be used to continue tracking people’s activity on social media even after they become naturalized citizens.

“There’s no clear sign on when this intrusion into our electronics and communications will end,” he said.

The government is collecting comments on the proposed policy until May 5.