Immigration Consequences of “Un-American” Activities: USCIS Policy Update

By C. Matthew Schulz

On August 19, 2025, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a press release announcing that it will now consider anti-Americanism in discretionary immigration decisions. 

This policy shift, formalized in the USCIS August 29, 2025 Policy Alert, means that support for “anti-American” groups or ideologies will carry overwhelmingly negative weight in benefit requests such as adjustment of status, parole, employment authorization, and certain employment-based immigrant petitions.

Constitutional and Civil Liberties Concerns

The most striking aspect of this development is the irony of defining “un-American” conduct in ways that may implicate rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution itself. 

The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, religion, and association—even for unpopular or controversial beliefs. Labeling certain political expression, religious affiliation, or organizational membership as “un-American” risks turning constitutionally protected activity into grounds for immigration penalties.

Civil liberties advocates point out the danger of subjective enforcement: what is deemed “anti-American” could vary based on political climate, administrative priorities, or even individual officer bias. The language of the policy recalls an earlier era when “un-American activities” served as a catch-all accusation used to suppress dissent.

Historical Echoes: HUAC and McCarthyism

The policy draws uncomfortable parallels to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) of the mid-20th century. 

Beginning in 1938, HUAC investigated supposed Communist infiltration of American institutions, leading to blacklists and ruined careers—most famously the Hollywood Ten, who were jailed and barred from working after refusing to testify. The HUAC was responsible for facilitating the Hollywood "Blacklist" during the 1950s, calling many Hollywood starts, directors, producers, and writers to Congress to testify.

During the McCarthy era, accusations of being “un-American” or “disloyal” became political weapons, chilling free expression and undermining civil liberties. 

The HUAC was disbanded in 1975. HUAC Abolished; 37 Years of Civil Liberties Violations Finally Ends | Today in Civil Liberties History

As History.com notes, the concept of “un-American activities” was a blunt instrument that punished lawful association and free thought as much as genuine subversion.

Today’s USCIS guidance revives that language, raising the question of whether history is poised to repeat itself.

Administrative Burdens and Political Implications

This policy does not exist in isolation. It coincides with USCIS’s resumption of neighborhood checks in the naturalization process, where officers gather information about an applicant’s character and associations from local communities.

Together, these measures represent a massive expansion of government discretion and investigative workload. Officers must now evaluate not only eligibility for a benefit but also subjective judgments about ideology, associations, and “loyalty.” This adds substantial time and complexity to adjudications.

The likely consequences are clear:

• Delays in naturalization processing, which may slow down the admission of new citizens.
• Postponement of voting rights for thousands of lawful permanent residents who otherwise would have naturalized before upcoming elections.
• Risk of bias—whether racial, religious, or political—shaping outcomes in ways that undermine fairness and consistency.

Irony

There is a deep irony in treating the exercise of constitutionally protected freedoms as evidence of being “un-American.” The very rights that define American democracy—free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to assemble and associate—may now, under this policy, be construed as negative discretionary factors for immigrants.

In practice, this places immigrants in a precarious position: to gain citizenship, they may feel compelled to limit their Second Amendment rights guaranteed by the US Constitution and self-censor lawful expression and avoid lawful associations for fear that USCIS could view them as un-American.

Conclusion

By linking immigration benefits to vague concepts of “anti-Americanism,” USCIS has opened the door to bias/subjective enforcement, civil liberties concerns, and political consequences. 

Although the new policy is framed as a national security measure, tye likely real-world effect will be to slow down naturalization, suppress lawful expression, and delay the ability of new Americans to fully participate in democracy—including the right to vote in upcoming elections.