Democratic leaders of the U.S. House Homeland Security called on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday to abandon plans to include social media scraping in an “extreme vetting” initiative for visa applicants.
In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, the lawmakers raised concerns about Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Visa Lifecycle Vetting Initiative (VLVI), formerly known as the Extreme Vetting Initiative.
U.S. Reps. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, Filemon Vela (D-TX), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, and Kathleen Rice (D-NY), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, urged Nielsen to halt social media scraping provisions of VLVI.
“The Trump administration’s extreme vetting initiative must be stopped,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. “Not only will it be ineffective and inaccurate, but will certainly be discriminatory and unjustly target certain communities. ICE’s intention to build a program with unknown limits to search social media platforms demonstrates a disregard for privacy, due process and the rights to free speech and free association. This initiative will undoubtedly chill free speech online. We urge Secretary Nielsen to realize the constitutional implications of this program and immediately halt any further implementation.”
The lawmakers also raised concerns that VLVI will be “ineffective, inaccurate, discriminatory and unjustly target certain communities.” The lawmakers also voiced issues with Homeland Security Investigations’ plans to automate social media searches to keep tabs on individuals, known as scraping.
“Although we support the agency’s efforts to screen visa applicants using targeted, rule-based screening, we are worried by the agency’s interest in expanding scraping to identify an individual’s ability to be a ‘positively contributing member of society’ or ‘contribute to the national interests,’” the letter stated. “ Such vague criteria are not supported by law and provide ICE with great latitude to deport and deny immigration benefits to individuals without due process.”
The lawmakers concluded that they oppose the inclusion of social media scraping and automated lead generation in the VLVI program and called on ICE and DHS to “immediately stop pursuing the related vetting contract and other similar programs.”