Three labor unions sued the Trump administration Thursday in connection with a program that searched social media posts of visa holders, arguing that it violates the First Amendment.
The unions — the International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America; Communications Workers of America; and American Federation of Teachers — called on a federal judge to block the Trump administration from “relying on or using all records of individuals created through the Challenged Surveillance Program and its unlawful viewpoint-based surveillance and to further purge those records.”
“Plaintiffs represent thousands of people whose speech is chilled by the threat of adverse immigration action if the government disapproves of anything they have expressed or will express,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that some union members have withdrawn from publicly affiliating with their unions at organizing events, withdrawn from leadership roles and “deleted, refrained from, or otherwise altered their social media and online engagement with the unions.”
“This loss of engagement has harmed the plaintiffs’ ability to further their organizational missions and impeded their ability to carry out their responsibilities, which include recruitment, retention, and organization of union members; advocacy on behalf of union members; and the promotion of civic and political engagement among union members,” the lawsuit read.
Since January, the administration has searched for posts and media shared online that could result in the rescinding of the poster’s visa.
The day he returned to the White House on Jan. 20, President Trump signed an executive order to ensure visa holders “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.”
In June, the State Department said it would start asking applicants to make their social media public for vetting. The interviews would determine who might “pose a threat to U.S. national security.”
But international students started to clean up their social media history in case they were not allowed into the U.S.
Dan Saltman, CEO and founder of Redact.dev, previously said his company’s trajectory saw 10 percent growth in the months since the new interviews were announced.
“Basically, our understanding is that people are using this to clean up any political takes that they have, whatsoever,” Saltman said in July. “Anything that can be seen as inflammatory, really kind of quelling freedom of speech.”
