USA to use artificial intelligence to invalidate visas of foreign students who are pro-Palestinian
The U.S. State Department launched a “catch and revoke” program to revoke visas of foreign students who appear as Hamas supporters using AI-assisted reviews of their social media accounts.
Trump signed an executive order at the start of this year to fight against antisemitism. He also pledged visa revocation to students after social media monitoring with the help of AI. Any student who has taken part in pro-Palestinian protests will be deported and sent back to the country from which they came.
First Amendment and Free Speech Concerns:
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and pro-Palestinian groups had free speech concerns. They said that AI should not be relied on for evaluating the decades-old and subtlety-filled Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Fox News reported that the US State Department revoked the visa of a student who provoked a “Hamas-supporting disturbance.”
The US Constitution’s First Amendment safeguards the freedom of speech and assembly, which in this case seems to be broken. Anyone with student visas will be denied freedom of speech in the name of antisemitism.
If that’s not enough, officials are checking reports of protests against Israel’s policies to implement the “catch and revoke” program. Jewish students’ lawsuits also highlight foreign nationals reportedly participating in antisemitism.
What’s going to happen?
Officials are planning to examine the internal database to check if any visa holders were arrested during the Biden administration. The US State Department is working with the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to implement the deportation of “Hamas supporters.”
Trump claimed he would also stop federal funding for educational institutes that permit what he labeled as illegal protests.
What next?
Rights advocates condemned Trump and his diction toward protestors, and the American Civil Liberties Union requested colleges and universities not bow to federal pressure. The legal director of the ACLU and co-author of the letter, Cecilia Wang, said that it’s disturbing to see free speech shamelessly threatened by the White House on US college campuses.
It should not come as a surprise that antisemitism is a crime but not Islamophobia. Is AI going to be used to police speech and take away freedom of assembly? Will there be bias and bigotry in AI’s implementation? Israel’s military has already killed more than 48,000 Palestinians and displaced most of the population, and now AI will be used to shut down anyone who voices an opinion.
