Antisemites need not apply, U.S. says of aliens seeking green cards

"New training materials issued last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) show that the Trump administration is serious about excluding aliens with antisemitic and/or anti-American views from obtaining green cards.

The updated training materials, recently reviewed by The New York Times, incorporate policy guidance issued on Aug. 19, 2025, by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency of Homeland Security that handles green card applications. The documents, which the Times said have not been previously reported on, ‘show how expansively the Trump administration is carrying out [the August] directive.’

The training materials instruct immigration officers to carefully examine applicants who encourage antisemitism ‘through rhetorical or physical actions.’ Officers should ‘focus particularly on aliens who engaged in on-campus anti-American and antisemitic activities’ following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, the Times reported.

Anti-Israel protests exploded across American campuses following the Hamas onslaught. They often morphed into outright antisemitism with Jews threatened, cursed and spit upon.

On Oct. 25, 2023, at Cooper Union College in New York, Jewish students barricaded themselves in the school library as anti-Israel activists pounded on the doors and windows outside.

Some of the worst antisemitism occurred in the country’s most elite schools. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Harvard University for violating the rights of Jewish and Israeli students under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. ‘Harvard has tolerated antisemitic mobs of students, faculty and visitors allegedly expressing their opposition to Israel by assaulting, harassing and intimidating Jewish and Israeli students with perceived racial, ethnic and national connections to Israel,’ the department said.

The USCIS materials included online examples of antisemitism, such as a social media post with a map of Israel with the name of the country crossed out and replaced with ‘Palestine.’ Another example provided was an online post calling for Israelis to ‘taste what people in Gaza are tasting.’..."