The Trump administration is reportedly using AI technologies in order to label foreign nationals in the U.S. as “pro-Hamas” and revoke their visas, a new report finds, in a chilling program called “Catch and Revoke.”
The initiative, launched by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, will use AI to scour the social media accounts of student visa holders for “evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies expressed after Hamas’ Oct. 7 2023, attack,” Axios has reported, citing senior State Department officials.
They are also checking news reports of protests and lawsuits from Jewish students to root out visa holders “allegedly engaged in antisemitic activity without consequence,” Axios’s report said. “Antisemitic activity” and “terrorist sympathies” are common code words used by Zionist authorities to target any speech expressing support for Palestinian rights — in a time when sympathies for Palestinians are at an all time high among the American public.
One official said that the administration is taking a “whole of government and whole of authority” approach,” with the departments of Justice and Homeland Security also helping to administer the program seemingly designed to crush dissent. Trump has issued numerous orders calling for the government to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters, and this week, threatened to imprison or deport activists participating in student protests for Palestinian rights.
The program represents an alarming escalation against the right to freedom of expression for advocates for Palestinian rights, who have already faced heavy repression for opposition to the Gaza genocide and in decades past. Advocates have raised alarm over the program, saying that it clearly tramples on free speech rights and harkens back to historic repression and surveillance of anti-war and Muslim advocates under laws like the Patriot Act.
“This should concern all Americans. This is a First Amendment and freedom of speech issue and the administration will overplay its hand,” Abed Ayoub, executive director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told Axios. “Americans won’t like this. They’ll view this as capitulating free speech rights for a foreign nation.”
Ayoub said that the program parallels the Nixon administration’s Operation Boulder, in which the federal government surveilled and repressed Arab Americans in the wake of the 1967 Naksa, in which Israel seized the West Bank, Gaza, the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula, and the Syrian Golan Heights.
“Another reminder that Palestine is the canary in the coal mine of authoritarianism and repression,” said Middle East analyst Yousef Munayyer, who heads the Arab Center Washington D.C.’s Palestine/Israel program. “The bombs they drop in Palestine won’t stay there. The laws that target Palestine won’t stop there. The tech tools they abuse won’t be limited to there.”
Ayoub further pointed out that the use of AI in the program is particularly concerning.
“With the advent of AI, it’s even scarier because they’re policing speech and using faulty technology,” Ayoub said.
Indeed, AI technologies have been demonstrated to have racist biases, including Islamophobia.
Further, it’s unclear what AI programs are being used, but the Israeli military has made extensive use of U.S.-created AI technology in order to generate targets for assassination — including children — as part of its genocide in Gaza. Israel is also reportedly training a ChatGPT-like software on Arabic conversations obtained through surveillance of Palestinians, which experts say the military could use to incriminate and target Palestinians.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today during our fundraiser. We have until midnight tonight to add 140 new monthly donors. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.