Trump administration to deny green cards to applicants with record of anti-Israel speech

JTA – The Trump administration is instructing immigration officers to deny green cards to applicants who have expressed political views it deems “antisemitic” or “anti-American”, including some forms of pro-Palestinian speech. 

The new guidance, which was first reported by The New York Times, discourages officers at US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from giving green cards to immigrants who have engaged in activities “endorsing, promoting or supporting anti-American views” or “antisemitic terrorism, ideologies, or groups”. 

The guidance, distributed last month, encouraged immigration officers to deny green cards to individuals who participated in pro-Palestinian campus protests or posted criticism of Israel on social media. Officers were also told to “focus particularly on aliens who engaged in on-campus anti-American and antisemitic activities” after 7 October, when Hamas attacked Israel and started the Gaza war. 

One example of questionable speech included in the new guidance shows the Israeli flag crossed out alongside the words “Stop Israeli Terror in Palestine”, according to Department of Homeland Security training materials reviewed by The New York Times. 

Another example of conduct characterised as antisemitic included a social media post showing a map of Israel with the nation’s name crossed out and replaced with the word “Palestine”, and another that says Israelis should “taste what people in Gaza are tasting”. 

The latest guidance follows an August 2025 announcement from USCIS that said the agency would begin vetting green card applicants for “anti-American” and “antisemitic” ideology. Earlier in the year, it said it would review the social media accounts of visa applicants, including international students, for what it defined as “antisemitic activity”. 

The push dovetails with a broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses in the United States, with the Trump administration seeking to deport several prominent non-citizen students who had participated in such protests.