Three major labor unions sued the federal government on Thursday to stop a sweeping social media surveillance program designed to revoke the visas and green cards of immigrants who hold “hostile attitudes” about the government.

The unions say the AI-powered “catch and revoke” program has suppressed the free speech of their members, including graduate students who have been targeted by the State Department for expressing pro-Palestine views.

The First Amendment applies to everyone who lives in the U.S., the lawsuit filed on the unions’ behalf by three civil liberties groups notes. Other lawsuits have challenged visa revocations, but this is the first to take on the surveillance program itself, said Lisa Femia, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a group that works on digital privacy and is part of the plaintiffs’ legal team.

“We are the first challenging the surveillance program that is upstream of the immigration enforcement actions, that is both leading to negative enforcement actions, that is also at a broad scale suppressing and chilling speech of many, many people, both non-citizens and citizens alike,” Femia told The Intercept.

The plaintiffs in the case are the United Automobile Workers, the Communications Workers of America, and the American Federation of Teachers.

Defendants in the case include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, their agencies, and the U.S. government. (The State Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

The unions are seeking a judge’s order halting the surveillance program, which would deal the Trump administration a major setback in its attempt to weaponize the immigration enforcement system against people whose views it disfavors.

Policing Viewpoints

Only weeks after Trump’s inauguration, Rubio announced a “catch and revoke” program, which he said would take aim at student and visitor visa holders who expressed anti-American views. He singled out protesters taking part in pro-Palestine demonstrations on campus.

“Buildings are being taken over, activities going on — this is clearly an organized movement,” Rubio said on March 28. “And if you are in this country on a student visa and are a participant in those movements, we have a right to deny your visa.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security also launched its own “tiger team” to target student protesters, drawing on information posted to the secretive Canary Mission website.

The government’s efforts to police the views of immigrants has extended to lawful permanent residents such as Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, both pro-Palestine activists who have fought monthslong challenges to the government’s attempts to deport them.

The American Association of University Professors filed suit against the targeting of academics and students. In September, a federal judge issued a withering decision finding that the government’s efforts to target noncitizen residents of the U.S. at universities violated the First Amendment.

That has not stopped the government from policing online speech. On Tuesday, the State Department announced that it was revoking the visas of people who had criticized Charlie Kirk in social media posts after his assassination.

Instead of deportations and visa revocations, the lawsuit takes aim at the web of surveillance the government conducts to populate its list of targets.

The exact tools the government is using are shrouded in mystery, but it has repeatedly stated that it is using artificial intelligence and other software as part of a continuous vetting process of every visa holder.

Intimidation Campaign

The government has also engaged in a public intimidation campaign, the lawsuit says, warning noncitizens that it will be policing their social media feeds and ejecting them out of the country if it finds content it dislikes.

International graduate students have gone silent in response — including union members who responded to internal surveys.

Of the 770 participants in a UAW member survey who had heard of the government surveillance, 61 percent said they had changed their behavior as a result. The percentage was even higher among noncitizens, 84 percent of whom said they were changing their behavior online.

Union members have backed away from signing onto public statements, joining union group chats, serving in leadership roles, and even voting in a union election for fear the government will target them, the lawsuit says.

“The Trump administration’s use of surveillance to track and intimidate UAW members is a direct assault on the First Amendment — and an attack on every working person in this country,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “If they can come for UAW members at our worksites, they can come for any one of us tomorrow. And we will not stand by and let that happen.”

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