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.”
Desecrating the American flag is also a potentially disqualifying factor, as is supporting “subversive” ideologies.
“Immigration officers must elevate all cases involving ‘potential anti-American and/or antisemitic conduct or ideology’ to their managers and to the agency’s general counsel’s office for review, according to the documents,” the Times said.
USCIS spokesman Matthew Tragesser, in the August press release announcing the new guidance, said, “America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies.”
The new guidelines are but one of a series of steps by USCIS to beef up immigration enforcement and strengthen the agency’s effectiveness.
Joseph Edlow, USCIS director, told Congress on Feb. 10, “My vision has been clear: to restore accountability and security to our legal immigration system, ensuring that it serves the interests of the American people above all else. ... USCIS has aligned immigration policy with our deeply held American values, issuing policy guidance emphasizing that there is no room in America for aliens who espouse anti-American ideologies or support terrorist organizations.”
USCIS started recruiting “a new class of immigration officers called Homeland Defenders” to “better support the agency’s mission,” he said.
“Since launching the hiring campaign on September 30, USCIS has received more than 50,000 applications—the highest in agency history. The first Homeland Defenders began reporting for duty in early December 2025,” he added.
