The Department of Homeland Security is step up thegovernment ’s live programof demanding people entering the country bridge player over the details of their bearing on societal metier , CNN reportedon Friday .

While the State Department already mandate that almost all visa applicants inform U.S. officials of the name of any accounts they have maintained in the last five years on a with child identification number of sites , a beginning at the DHS say that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ( USCIS ) and Customs and Border Protection will now be requesting that information on more forms . Those admit requests for naturalization and asylum ( in the latter showcase referring to refugee ) . CNN wrote :

This is the first time Citizenship and Immigration Services would want social media account and grip on these applications , according to a DHS official . It ’s unclear whether Customs and Border Protection was gather this datum in the past .

DHS police outside a courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.

DHS police outside a courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia.Photo: Zach Gibson (Getty Images)

ACLU National Security Project senior stave lawyer Hugh Handeyside tell apart CNN that the increased requests are “ a musing of the extent to which U.S. government way have really expanded use of societal media surveillance . ” He added that the likelihood federal agency will “ misinterpret ” online postings or otherwise use them against will “ inescapably hamper freedom of manner of speaking . ”

fit in to ZDNet , a DHSnotice on the federal registryshows that they plan to request “ immigrants , asylum seekers , and refugee ” provide usernames for 19 situation : Ask.fm , Douban , Facebook , Flickr , Instagram , LinkedIn , MySpace , Pinterest , QZone ( QQ ) , Reddit , Sina Weibo , Tencent Weibo , Tumblr , Twitter , Twoo , Vine , VKontakte , Youke , and YouTube . As ZDNet note , DHS said to begin with this year that lying or withholding information on these forms could seriously bear on whether or not a move over individual is able-bodied to secure approval for asking .

Moreover , in several incident , U.S. boundary line functionary havereportedlydenied entryto individuals after searching their earpiece and obtaining evidence as scant as who they follow on social medium . In one high-pitched - profile incident , a Harvard student from Lebanon said he was deny entrance because a border federal agent searched his telephone and retrieve thathis social media accountsfollowed mass utter “ political pointedness of prospect that controvert the U.S.”—with immigration officialsnever publicly explainingwhat they found so objectionable .

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

allot to CNN , aBrennan Center reportfound that in 2016 , a legal brief leave by DHS to Donald Trump ’s administration stated that “ the entropy in the accounts did not grant clear , articulable links to home security worry , even for those applicants who were found to pose a potential internal security measures threat based on other security screening result . ”

The DHS official that verbalise with CNN said that the collection of social mass medium details would make the “ review of publicly available social medium entropy more efficient , ” adding that USCIS would hive away the information from two forms for up to 12 years , while CBP ’s Electronic Visa Update System archives the information for 12 years . Any data linked to law enforcement will be “ accessible for the spirit of the police force enforcement activity , ” the functionary told CNN .

The DHS has also recently come in under fire for distinguish USCIS agents that they could resume the pattern of creating fake social medium score to supervise publicly available selective information — something that isagainst the terms of serviceof almost all major platforms .

William Duplessie

Civil LibertiesDonald TrumpPoliceSocial mediaSurveillanceTechnology

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