The Department of Homeland Security will start monitoring the social media accounts of all immigrants to the U.S. for “antisemitism,” effective immediately, according to a statement from the government agency released Wednesday. The announcement comes as DHS continues to purge the United States of any immigrants who criticize the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza, where over 50,000 people have been killed since late 2023.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is a part of DHS, will monitor social media content that it says is “endorsing, espousing, promoting, or supporting antisemitic terrorism, antisemitic terrorist organizations, or other antisemitic activity,” according to the statement.
“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,” said DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin. “Sec. Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for anti-Semitic violence and terrorism—think again. You are not welcome here.”
Peaceful activism was previously protected in the U.S. under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, though that’s changed rapidly since President Donald Trump took power again on January 20, the same day Elon Musk made Nazi-style salutes to kick off his presidency. The definition of “antisemitism” isn’t defined by DHS and has been used as a pretext by U.S. authorities in recent weeks to revoke the visas of international students who have done nothing antisemitic, but instead have simply spoken out against the war in Gaza.
Rumeysa Ozturk, a PhD student at Tufts University, was recently abducted by masked agents of the state near Boston. The secret police wore no uniform and yet just picked up Ozturk because the government says she engaged in “antisemitism,” and support for “terrorists.” But her only crime appears to have been writing an opinion piece in the student newspaper calling for an end to Israel’s war on Gaza. Ozturk was quickly flown to an ICE detention facility thousands of miles away in Louisiana, and she has reportedly been denied access to an inhaler during asthma attacks, a clear human rights violation. Ozturk’s case is currently being litigated in Vermont, where a judge has denied a request that she be released.
Other activists who’ve said and done nothing even remotely antisemitic have also been abducted by secret police in recent weeks, including Mahmoud Khalil who’s married to a U.S. citizen. Khalil, who led pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University, has been charged with no crime but the U.S. government is still trying to deport him under the guise of fighting antisemitism. Columbia University, like many other universities around the U.S., had $400 million in federal funding threatened by the Trump regime before it agreed to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department into federal receivership, effectively allowing Trump’s government to determine how the department functions.
The U.S. is also shipping people to an El Salvador torture prison under the pretext of going after gangs, though a recent analysis by Bloomberg News found that 90% of the people sent by the U.S. to the country have committed no crime in America. The Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, recently visited the notorious prison, posing for a photo-op that will certainly be in textbooks of the future about America’s descent into fascism under President Trump.
For his part, Trump has repeatedly said extremely antisemitic things while still pledging support for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump shocked the world when he said at a press conference with the Israeli leader in February that the U.S. will “own” Gaza and that the territory should be emptied of all Palestinians so that it can be developed anew.
Prominent accounts on X have called for an investigation into Ms. Rachel, an online influencer who’s extremely popular with toddlers. Ms. Rachel, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, has been accused of disseminating “Hamas-aligned propaganda to her millions of followers” by @StopAntisemitism, which says it has made a referral to the U.S. Department of Justice. Ms. Rachel’s “propaganda” includes such inflammatory lines as, “I care deeply for all children. Palestinian children, Israeli children, children in the US—Muslim, Jewish, Christian children—all children, in every country. Not one is excluded.”
The war in Gaza rages on, with the latest airstrike in Gaza City killing at least 23 people on Wednesday, including eight children, and leaving dozens more wounded, according to the New York Times. Roughly 20 people are reportedly missing in the rubble of this new airstrike, but there isn’t enough equipment to search, the newspaper reports.
Israel imposed a total blockade on food and supplies entering Gaza at the start of March, the longest ban on food entering the territory since the war began on October 7, 2023. Markets are empty, bakeries are closed and food is running out, according to the latest reporting from Reuters. But if you’re an immigrant to the U.S., pointing out this simple fact might not only get you denied entry to the country. You could be sent to an ICE concentration camp or possibly worse, based on the trajectory of the Trump regime’s actions.
