On 15, September 2017, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it is planning to dramatically ramp up surveillance of virtually anyone in the United States who is not a U.S. citizen by birth. The new rule goes into effect on October 18, 2017, the same day the newest version of the Trump travel ban is set to go into effect.
The full regulation is posted here.
Under this rule, DHS announced that it will begin gathering information on the “social media handles and aliases, associated identifiable information, and search results,” of all immigrants in the country—even green card holders and naturalized U.S. citizens. This constitutes a tremendous violation of privacy not only for the foreign-born, but for any native-born U.S. citizen who happens to be communicating with an immigrant via social media.
This may be worst than anything we have ever seen in this county. The Trump Administration is taking the Voluntary Pilot Program that Obama administration used for class of individuals on visitor’s visa to new heights. This dragnet will capture millions of native-born Americans with whom immigrants interact.
We all have reasons to be alarmed!