Secret Policy to Ignore Social Media? Not So Fast

Secret Policy to Ignore Social Media? Not So Fast

Cato Institute - Tuesday December 15, 2015

by Alex Nowrasteh

There is a supposed “secret policy” that prevented consular and immigration officers from checking Tashfeen Malik’s social media accounts where she wrote about jihad (possibly under a pseudonym or in personal messages).  If her statements were discovered then she would have been denied a visa, preventing the atrocity.  This is getting a lot of attention on blogs and Secretary Jeh Johnson responded by saying that there are certain limits that probably apply to personal messages although he’s unclear. 

After following this controversy, I heard from five different immigration attorneys that there is no such secret policy and their clients’ routinely have their social media accounts checked by immigration officials – or at least have heard of it happening. 

Matthew Kolken of Kolken and Kolken in Buffalo, New York told me:

The first time I confirmed that the government was investigating social media was around 2009 when an adjudicator at a marriage fraud interview confronted my client with a series of pictures he was tagged in on Facebook. The only person more surprised than me was his wife when she saw that the pictures were posted by his girlfriend the previous weekend.  The silver lining is that when the officer witnessed my client’s rage he approved the application on the spot.

Charles Kuck at Kuck Immigration Partners in Atlanta, Georgia wrote:

USCIS and other government immigration agencies have been using social media for at least the last five years in naturalization, green card, and visa cases.  It is disingenuous of USCIS to now say they have not used information gleaned from these sites to question and even deny applications.  We have advised clients for years of this practice by USCIS, ICE, and other DHS agencies as well as by the Department of State.

Greg Siskind at Siskind Susser PC wrote:

We’ve heard anecdotally for years about how immigration examiners will look at social media and scour the Internet when adjudicating a case and I’ve told clients to assume that their online history is being reviewed.  But the immigration bar’s understanding of this has been vague – when it happens, what they’re looking for, what sites they’ll look at, whether they have a way of looking at password-protected pages, etc.  We did just hear from a client who is applying for naturalization who received an inquiry from the FBI regarding his posting a statement where he actually denounced terrorism.

Aileen Josephs wrote:

The USCIS office in West Palm Beach, Florida has and continues to explore social media (Facebook) with marriage cases.  Before the interview, they do in fact explore postings to see if the marriage is bona fide. The excuse that the Administration is giving that they do not have a policy of using social media is incorrect.  They have and they do.  The question is why did they not use it in the US Embassy in Pakistan?  Who interviewed Ms. Malik at the Embassy?  An American State department official or a paid, local that works at the Embassy?  So many questions that need to be answered.

Bryan Johnson at Amoachi and Johnson, PLLC told me:

I don’t have any anecdotes of clients being confronted with information from their Facebook profiles but the federal government’s claim that it would be impossible to vet social media accounts of visa applicants is implausible at best.  The government has time to interview every applicant in person so therefore they would have time to do a brief social media search – it takes about two minutes.

I’m not convinced this “secret policy” to ignore social media is real after hearing from these professionals.  Here’s to hoping that reporters will seek to verify whether such a policy exists. 

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